Page 67 of The Scent of Happiness

“Huh?” Theo looked up from the document he was working on. He was sitting at Brooke’s dining table on a Sunday evening, enjoying the scent of pine and cranberries as she cut her newest soap loaf into bars. He pointed to his laptop. “Working on your case, actually. Stalling Dixie again. This one is going to break her.”

“Doubt it,” Brooke said. “She hasn’t broken yet.”

“She will,” Theo said. “I’ve barely begun with the delays I can ask for. The judge let me contest discovery, so now I’m going to see what the HIPAA laws say about her medical records.”

Brooke hung in the kitchen doorway. “I’d ask for an explanation of that but I’m not going to understand it anyway.”

“But you wanted to know what I was doing, so…”

“No, I mean that thing with your hands.” Brooke stacked her hands at her belly, chest, nose, and forehead in an imitation of his ritual.

“Oh that.” Theo hadn’t even realized he was doing it. “It’s something I do to help me think. I stack one thought on top of another, sort of like blocks. It helps me formulate a good argument.”

Brooke grinned, showing the dimple in her cheek. “That is adorable.”

“Hey, it works.” Theo got up from the table and got a pop from the fridge.

“I like it,” Brooke said. “Maybe I should try it.”

“I doubt it works for everyone.”

“You are so sweet.” Brooke put down her soap knife. “That’s the nicest way to say that my brain can’t form a logical argument.”

“I didn’t say that. I wouldn’t say that. Not ever.” Theo planted a kiss on her forehead. “You have a wonderful brain. It just works differently.”

Brooke gestured to the post-its on the fridge and on the apartment door. “Sometimes I think that if I didn’t have paper brains, I wouldn’t have any brains at all.”

“That’s not true. You understand chemistry and color theory. I’ve seen your checklists. You’re thorough when you’re creating.”

“Only because the steps are already laid out for me.”

“Not always. I’ve seen you adapt recipes on the fly. You can measure the dimensions of a mold and calculate how much oil and lye you’ll need to fill it without ever picking up a pen. You’re doing algebra in your head.”

Brooke’s gaze slid away and she tilted her head to one side as if she’d never considered that before. Did she truly not know how special she was? He wanted to kick every teacher who’d ever told her to sit down and shut up. He wanted to erase the word potential from every guidance counselor’s lips. He wanted her to understand her worth, to inhale it deep inside herself, to make it a part of her, so she’d never doubt it.

“I know I make excellent soap,” Brooke said. “But that’s the only thing I’m good at. I need three different trackers on my phone and I still don’t get done half of what I want to in a day. I’m in the middle of cutting this soap and I’ve got four open fragrance containers on the counter that I’m deciding between for my next batch and three tabs on my computer with three different recipes I’m trying to pick from. My journal is a mess. I’m behind in boxing mail orders and I’m only halfway through designing new soap labels. I’m in the middle of writing a Facebook comment that I’ll probably delete before posting. I haven’t memorized my choir music. My laundry has been in the dryer for two days. My library book is overdue. And those are only the things I can think of without looking at my notes.”

Theo laughed. “I knew you had superpowers.”

“Please don’t do that.” Brooke closed her eyes and pressed a hand to her forehead. “That whole your disability is a superpower thing is really old.”

“Withdrawn,” Theo said. Now that she pointed it out, it was kind of a dick thing to say. “But do you know how few people can manage more than one project at a time? You juggle all of them, going back and forth between them without ever losing momentum. You’ve got a lot of plates, but you keep them spinning. Your customers are lucky to have you. The library is lucky to have you. Your choir is lucky to have you.”

Brooke rolled her eyes. “Next you’ll tell me my laundry is lucky to have me.”

“Nah. Your laundry can suck it.”

Brooke laughed and gave him a kiss that told him he was the luckiest one of all.

* * *

A week later, Brooke wasn’t feeling lucky. She was feeling awful. She popped two Midol, held a heating pad to her abdomen, and scrolled through her Netflix watchlist as her uterus tried to turn itself inside out. Why the hell did she have so many romcoms on her list? So annoying. She’d probably add them all back next week, but today she was not in the mood. Delete, delete, delete.

The apartment door opened and Theo rustled around the kitchen, opening and closing the freezer. He was annoying too. Insisting on coming over even though she didn’t feel well.

“That ought to do it,” he said.

“Do what?” Brooke asked. “I told you I don’t feel good.”