Until now.
It doesn’t take long to get to Yixiang Parfums in the light midnight traffic. Dad didn’t like the idea of Mom and Waipo working from the house because of the insurance cost, so the perfume lab is rigged up in the back of the store. It was a haven for me growing up, as I did my homework in the corner or sat at the table experimenting with my own scents while Mom’s soft conversation with Waipo filled the room. Eric rarely came by, but I liked it when he did. We’d compete to make up the strangest perfume names, with Mom acting as the judge.My brother almost always won.
Luckily, Mom hasn’t changed the security code, so I let myself in through the back door and switch on the spot lighting over the table. Then I look around, searching for any variances between my memory and reality, like one of those find-the-differences pictures in the back of a children’s magazine. There are some storage units and a new chair, but to my relief, the lab remains mostly the same.
At Ile de Grasse, I hooked up a table with a vent so I can create in a relatively safe and neutral-smelling space, but it’s nothing compared to Mom’s dedicated setup. Rows of brown vials sit in a huge horseshoe around a central workspace to form her perfumer’s organ. Shelves with bottles collected from both the greats—Edmond Roudnitska, Dominique Ropion, Sophia Grojsman, Olivier Cresp, Jean-Claude Ellena—and up-and-coming perfume houses line the walls. I have a single shelf in our break room fridge to store more delicate ingredients, but Mom has two refrigerators.
This lab, a mainstay of my childhood, is where I would be working had life not drop-kicked me right off the field. Even moli-less, I could have been a perfumer like my mother and grandmother, building the very niche and respected Yixiang scents.
After all, it isn’t bad being a Hua. Objectively, and on paper, I’ve been lucky. Our family’s house is revered for its creativity and precise technical ability even among those who know nothing of the secret moli fragrances, and my years of perfumery training provided a marketable set of skills that started me off when I left home. There was some talk when I struck out on my own, since perfumery is a small world and an intergenerational fight makes for prime gossip. Those in the industry know my family connections and keep an eye on what I do.
But most of my clients are regular people who like good and interesting smells. Candy corn perfume is a thing thanks to me, courtesy of my Spookie Cookie Limited Edition Halloween Collection. Nota teeth-on-edge saccharine mess, though. The perfume had golden notes of caramelized sugar and champagne to evoke the smell of crushing dried maple leaves underfoot on Halloween night. I wanted the memory of kids callingtrick-or-treat, fueled by the buzz of cheap candy and the exhilarating feeling of being out after bedtime.
If my mother would only mind her business and leave me alone, I would be entirely pleased with myself and my nongifted, apparently inadequate letdown of a life.
I put down the register I’d brought with me from Toronto—out of an atavistic need to return it to its proper home—and take a seat in Waipo’s old chair. Only after I adjust the lumbar cushion does it occur to me that I’ve thoughtlessly changed something she’ll never be able to change back. Her preferred position for that small cushion is gone forever, and gradually more and more of her will be erased from this world until nothing remains.
I reach out a shaky hand to straighten the battered notepad that sits on the corner of the desk. The list on the top sheet begins with limonene, which doesn’t surprise me in the least. Waipo favors—favored—light citrus scents, and although she never would have worn perfume in the lab, it’s like I can smell her preferred fragrance—a Greek lemon orchard, the sour-sweet fruit warmed by the sun and placed against the saltiness of the wild indigo sea.
Then I lower my head and let myself cry, really cry, for the first time since I unpacked that horrible book. I thought I’d been coping well, but I suppose the feeling of loss is as unpredictable as loss itself.
A few dozen deep breaths later, the hiccups fading further with each inhale, I gather my courage to open the thick register, which I’ve kept closed since it arrived in Toronto.
Except for the last four chapters, the writing is that of Hua Zhengyi. It’s the responsibility of every fifth daughter to faithfully transcribe the work of the previous generations into a new register so the information is never lost. Fortunately, each daughter-scribe also made apoint of updating archaic language and measurements, and inserting notes on changing vocabulary and dating systems, so it remains intelligible to twenty-first-century me. Since transcribing the register is a task that apparently takes years, I’ll have a massive new entry for my to-do list once I start.
I flip through the pages, and it’s only when I find it that I realize I was looking for a note from my grandmother. It’s short, only two small characters in her signature purple ink. The first is the huo symbol that adorns all Waipo’s moli bottles. It’s the symbol that focused her power on the scent within, the conduit that helped transform the contents from a regular fragrance to a moli perfume. The second is my own huo symbol. I haven’t used it since I left, although in dreams I trace every one of the fifteen strokes over and over until I wake up with my hands still moving.
I check the chapter where she placed it for me to find and instantly wish I hadn’t. It’s tucked in the section written by the last fifth daughter.
The duty of the fifth daughter is simple, Zhengyi wrote decades ago.It is to maintain the family, like a pillar supports the vine. Others say power or fear or joy are most desirable, but I disagree. The need for love combines those and is paramount in all. The fifth daughter can offer this, and through her offering ensure the success, safety, and hope of her family. The fifth daughters are both foundation and keystone of a family which will wither without them. But they cannot exist without the family. Each nurtures the other.
The door opens and I jump. My mother flips on the overhead fluorescents to eradicate my atmospheric puddle of light, turning the room back into a laboratory.
“What are you doing here?” I ask. It’s late, and she should be in bed.
Her eyes fall on the register, but she says nothing and comes over to open the upper drawer of Waipo’s desk. Sitting under a half-used pack of tissues is an almost identical book, but the leather is pristine,the golden peony sharply defined. She takes it out and opens it to show the blank pages.
“Waipo had it made for when you decide to start,” she says. “You know the tradition.”
The tradition is that the transcription begins when the register comes into your possession. “It’s not my turn yet,” I say. Mom is the eldest Hua, after all.
“Waipo sent it to you.”
“You’re next in line after Waipo, not me,” I say, giving the book a little shove away from me. “It belongs here with you. So here you go. You can have it back.”
“I hope you haven’t let your Chinese lapse, the way you give up on everything else. That book is your heritage. She wanted you to have it.”
“To remind me of how I failed?”
“To remind you of who you are.” My mother’s voice is usually gentle, a misleading veneer over her steely personality. Now it has the sharp edge of broken stone. “Harnessing your moli is not where you failed. You failed when you ran away instead of persevering.”
“Okay, thanks for the clarification. Glad we can agree that I am, in fact, a failure, even though we differ on the details of exactly how that manifests.” I want to check my watch to see how long we were in the room together before the fight started. I’d say about forty-three seconds.
“You can’t be happy denying your gift,” she says. “I can tell it burns in you.”
I make a face. “Like an STI?”
“Language, Luling. Don’t be vulgar.”
