A mother came in with her daughter about four months before the wedding, hoping we might still have what she had worn at her own.
She knew the year and her maiden name, which was enough. The card was from March 1999: sandalwood base, rose heart, a little cardamom, twenty per cent. Blended in this shop by the grandfather who started the drawer.
We made three millilitres of it before promising anything, because a scent remembered for twenty six years is a dangerous thing to reproduce. Memory adds to a smell. She smelled it and it was right, which is not always how this story ends.
The daughter wore it, and the family took sixty small bottles of the same blend as favours. The new card carries a note pointing back at the old number, so the next person to ask has one thing to find instead of two.