Scented

Prologue - Mother

(Eight years ago)

The last words Bryan ever said to his mother were, "You stink."

His mother had been leaving for a Friends of the Library meeting. Wrapped in her winter coat and holding her gloves in one hand, she'd said, "Let me give you a hug and a kiss, because I won't be back until after you're asleep."

He walked toward her, fully prepared to meet her request, but as he got nearer, he slammed into a putrid odor. He stopped immediately for it was as if he'd been slapped with funk. It was the worst thing he'd ever smelled. Worse than the "science experiment" he'd done with Tommy Johnson where they'd added turpentine, mud, paint, pond scum and a bunch of other gross things they'd found. At the time he'd thought nothing could out-stink that concoction. Clearly he'd been wrong.

He stopped short of her outstretched arms, just beyond the tips of her fingers. She startled at his abrupt halt, but still smiled at him. Her dark brown hair was straightened, instead of curly, falling just beneath her shoulders, fanning out across the chocolate-colored coat.

"Don't stop," she said with a chuckle. "Come on." She leaned toward him and he realized the smell was coming from her. The odor seemed to multiply a thousand times in strength with each millimeter closer she came. Bryan stepped back two paces.

She knitted her eyebrows, truly confused

"Mom, you stink," he said in the unapologetic tone only an eight-year-old could manage.

Hurt flashed across her face and then quickly morphed into a strained expression — though probably it was her attempt at neutral. The sound of the kitchen door opening broke the silence, and both Bryan and his mother turned to see Bryan's father emerge. He'd been finishing dinner because he'd gotten home too late to eat with his family.

"What's going on?" he asked, squinting distrustfully at Bryan, and then turning to his wife, trying to interpret her flustered face.

Bryan's mother pulled her lapel up and sniffed, then lifted her arm and inhaled in the direction of her pit. She shook her head. "Bryan thinks I don't smell well," she said, turning an awkward phrase in a clear attempt not to repeat what Bryan had just said so bluntly: that she stank. "I think I'm fine," she told her husband, though she still seemed to be surreptitiously inhaling the air around her, searching for this odor Bryan detected.

His father walked over to her, passing Bryan with a glare, and sniffed the air around his wife. He smiled. "You're great, Marina."

Marina returned her husband's grin, then looked past him to Bryan. "Guess you're outvoted, kiddo," she laughed. "Come on, give me my hug and kiss now or I'm gonna be late."

Bryan's father moved aside so the boy could go, but Bryan found he couldn't move. It didn't matter what they said. She stank, and he wasn't going near her or that smell. Bryan shook his head and stood firm. "You stink."

The redness seemed to burst onto his father's face like someone had turned on a switch. One moment, he was normal; the next he was filled with anger that had turned him the color of a beet. "That's no way to talk to your mother," he screamed.

Bryan took a step back. It had been to avoid his father's rage, but it had also lessened the pungency of his mother's newfound stench.

Bryan's father moved toward him, but Marina's mocha hand found his shoulder, and he turned back to her. "It's OK, Jack," she said soothingly. "Don't worry about it."

"What do you mean?" Jack argued. "That's not how he should talk to you."

She looked into her husband's eyes and shook her head. "It doesn't matter," she said, softly. "Sometimes kids are like that. And this coat's been in that downstairs closet, so maybe it's a little musty."

"He can still..." Jack started, but she held up a hand and he stopped.

"Goodnight Bryan," Marina said, peeking around her husband.

Bryan didn't know why, but he didn't say anything. Marina said goodnight to her husband, turned and went out the door.

That was the last time Bryan saw her. On the way to the library, an 18-wheeler hit ice and overturned on top of Marina Harper's Camry. The car was flattened beyond recognition, and the medical examiner said she'd died instantly.

While neither parent had smelled it, Bryan's mother did stink that night. She was drenched in the perfume of impending death.