“Is that all?”
She smiles through her next bite. “It’s a start.”
* * *
An hour later, the shop door opens, and two kids clamber inside in a storm of giggles and excitement. Benji steps in after them—no flannel to be seen, in shorts and a graphic tee, a cap slung backward over his head.
Yep, still hopelessly in love with him.
“I hope you don’t mind,” he says. “They wouldn’t take no for an answer.”
The young boy has his hands shoved in his pockets in a mirror image of his uncle. “I like your rainbow shelves.”
“Thank you. I like your hat.” I recognize it as Benji’s, and it’s clearly too big for him, drooping to one side of his head.
Benji introduces us. “This is Dominic and Daphne.”
“Hello,” I say.
“What’s a tequila sunrise?” Daphne asks, pulling a candle down off the shelf and burying her nose in it.
“Ask me again when you’re twenty-one,” Benji says.
I kneel down beside her. “Can I show you something?”
She nods.
“Close your eyes.” When she does, I continue, “Now breathe in, nice and slow.”
Her tiny chest rises on an inhale, and then her nose furrows. It’s adorable and so much like Benji that I bite back a laugh.
“Smells like fruit,” she says.
“What does it make you think of?”
She shrugs and puts the candle back. Okay then. I survey the shelves, looking for something she might like, then pull down one called Gossamer Wings, but I keep the label facing away from her.
“Okay, try this one. Don’t think so much about what it smells like, but what it makes you feel.”
Daphne closes her eyes and takes another long,dramatic breath in. In my peripheral vision, Benji and Dominic are standing still. Watching. Waiting.
I could tell her that the notes are filled with musk and rose and lily of the valley. I could tell her that the name came from my favorite song or that it always makes me think of sleepovers, where Skye and I would hide under the covers and whisper to each other until we were in a fit of giggles and one of our moms would come in and remind us it was past our bedtime.
I could say that it wasn’t the first candle we made, but it was the first one I knew was special.
But it’s not about me.
“Smells like Daddy,” she says.
“Oh?”
She shrugs again. “He’s always outside. He likes the-the bushes?—”
“Garden,” Benji supplies.
“And he gets the dirt off, but he still smells like flowers.”
This.This is why I love my job.
