He spent the days leading up to his performance at the Delta Harmony Lounge exploring some of Memphis’s tourist spots. He walked the trails in the park that served as his home base, visited Graceland, and went to the zoo. But since his primary interest in Memphis was music, he did most of his exploring at night, moving between small and medium-sized venues and listening to a wide variety of music, including a strange mix of industrial and country swing.

When Friday arrived, Pax spent the day deciding which song he would perform. It didn’t really matter to him. This was a bucket list  item, not an audition. But, as a former professional musician, he wanted to make sure his performance was his best, and he still needed to address some challenges with his injured hand. He settled on his personalized version of I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry, the famous Hank Williams song, but with a bluesy spin. He thought the mix of blues and old-school country music would fit nicely into the Memphis scene.

The open mic sessions started at 8:00 p.m., but Pax arrived half an hour early to find a seat strategically placed so he could watch the other acts and still see the audience. The stage was big enough for a four-piece band, as long as little to no movement was needed. It was perfect for one man and a guitar.

He set his guitar case by his chair and ordered a beer. Tequila wasn’t kind to his aging vocal cords, but beer always seemed to relax them and give them more depth.

The crowd filtered in slowly, a larger turnout than he expected. He figured that many might be friends or family of the night’s performers, which was fine with him. They were all strangers, and he thought they would enjoy his act. Even if they didn’t, he was performing for himself more than anyone else.

As the room gradually filled up in anticipation of the first act, Pax noticed a group of three women enter and sit at the table next to him. He was struck by how stylishly they were dressed, as if they were heading to a gala, yet here they were at an open mic night in a small club off the main drag.

Then it struck him. At first, it was subtle, but it grew more obvious with each passing second.

Her perfume, he realized, and he was immediately disoriented.

The club manager stepped onto the stage, welcomed everyone, and invited the first performer. Pax heard none of it. He clenched the edge of his table as the scent from his past flooded his mind, bringing up memories from the decades he had shared with Sarah. It was the scent from the night he took her to her senior prom—the first time she kissed him. That night, he realized she saw him as more than a close friend. It was the scent she wore in the park when he asked her to marry him. It was her constant fragrance from every meaningful moment they had experienced together. It was—

His mind went blank. He couldn’t remember the name. Of all the memories that scent conjured, the most obvious—the name—was gone.

Pax looked up as the second performer stepped off the stage. The time lost during his trip into the past only heightened his agitation. He glanced at the women sitting a few feet away and realized that one of them was the source of the perfume. As the next act got ready to perform, he walked over.

“Excuse me,” he said quietly.

The three women looked up at him. From the change in perspective, he spotted her—the trail of perfume leading the way. She was the elegant brunette on the left, in her mid-forties, with a faint smile on her lips that radiated natural confidence. Pax looked up and noticed the performer beginning.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “Can I just sit here while she performs? I don’t want to be rude.”

The women agreed, and Pax sat listening, his fingers gripping the fabric of his pants as he waited for three minutes and forty-two seconds until the song finished. He clapped along with the rest of the crowd before sliding his chair forward to look at the brunette, who smelled so much like Her.

“Hi,” he said, a little unsteady and missing his usual charm and confidence. “Uh, hi.”

The woman replied, smiling, “You said that.”

Pax chuckled softly and nodded, trying to find his center.

“My name is Pax,” he said, extending his hand to introduce himself to Jessica, Camryn, and... Lara. He gazed at Lara.

“This is going to sound weird,” he said. “But can you tell me the name of the perfume you’re wearing?”

Lara smiled, revealing some teeth, clearly intrigued by this awkward man with a northern accent.

“It’s called Must de Cartier,” she replied. “My mother used to wear it, and now I do.”

He recognized it immediately when she said it and let out a sigh of relief that his memory was still intact. It had just skipped a groove.

“Thank you,” he said, the quiver of emotion not lost on the woman.

He shifted to stand up and return to his seat, but Lara touched his arm.

“Why did you want to know?” she asked.

Pax hesitated to share the reason for his emotional response to a perfume with a stranger. The club manager resolved the issue for him.

“Next up is Pax Butler. Did I get that right? Pax?”

Pax stood up, picked up his guitar, and headed on stage.

“You got it right,” he said, hoping his voice wouldn’t shake from the flood of cortisol streaming through him.

“Okay, great. Pax Butler, everyone.” The audience applauded.

Pax slung his guitar, checked the tuning, adjusted the mic, and stepped back. He tried to recall the song he wanted to perform, but, like Elvis, it had left the building. The perfume had sent his plans packing, leaving him frozen for a long, awkward moment. Then, just as the memories of Her were triggered by the faint scent of Must de Cartier, so too was his recollection of another time. A beautiful, yet tragic time.

He dabbed a little perfume on his finger and then applied it to her neck and behind her ears. She smiled.

“Thank you, baby. It makes me feel more like me.”

Pax gently kissed her. She felt weak from the radiation, and her hair was gone from the chemo. She was a shadow of her former self, but he could still see that angel in her eyes. Now, with her favorite scent lingering in the air, she returned.

“Sing something, Pax.”

He reached past the bedside table and grabbed his travel guitar, a stoic sentinel for those moments when inspiration struck him in the middle of the night.

“What would you like me to sing, my love?”

She squinted, trying to remember the song she wanted to hear. A tear of frustration formed in her eye and rolled down her cheek. He knew the name had slipped her mind.

“The one about the flowers,” she said at last.

He nodded and smiled before he started to strum.

Pax stepped up to the microphone.

“I was planning to put a little twist on a classic, but my memories have been a bit jumbled.”

He looked at Lara and smiled.

“I sang this song to my wife when she was sick. She’s not sick anymore. This is for you, baby.”

He closed his eyes and began to strum. He poured his heart out on stage, filling the room with the plaintive refrains of Red Roses, the heart-wrenching ballad by the BoDeans. He sang from pain, without clever riffs on the guitar, just chords behind the voice behind the words behind the grief.

When he strummed the final chord, three full seconds of silence passed before the roar of applause erupted. Pax nodded to the audience, thanked them, packed his guitar, and returned to his table. To his surprise, the three women stood and approached his table, with Lara now sitting on his right.

“That was so beautiful,” Camryn said, wiping her eyes with a napkin.

Jessica agreed and asked Pax if she could get him a drink.

“I never say no to tequila,” he laughed, blinking back tears.

Lara rested her chin on her hand, gazing at him intently.

“She wore this perfume,” she said.

Pax nodded and offered a thin smile.

“She passed, didn’t she?”

He looked down and nodded. Camryn started crying again. Lara just looked at him, studying.

“Pax, is it?” she asked. “Well, Pax, they say that scent is the strongest trigger for memory. You might be walking down a city street and smell a cigarette that takes you back to high school. Or you might smell something in a restaurant that reminds you of that first date with the one who got away. Perfume is so personal that—”

He felt overwhelmed, the need to scream building inside him. He needed to step away.

“If you’ll excuse me,” he said quietly, “I’m going to use the restroom.”

He stood to leave, but Lara suddenly stepped in front of him. Without asking, she cupped her hands on his cheeks and kissed him softly on the lips. The contact, the warmth of her lips, and her perfume overwhelmed him, and when she pulled away and stepped back, he knew he was losing the battle. Without saying another word, he quickly headed toward the restroom.

Pax stared in the mirror, fighting the urge to shout. He was having trouble catching his breath and feared he might be having a heart attack. He splashed water on his face and practiced some controlled breathing to regain the remnants of his shredded calm.

When he thought he had sufficiently recovered, he returned to his table, but as he approached it and the perfume flooded his sinuses, again, and he suddenly felt lightheaded.

He stumbled forward, grabbed the back of a chair, and sank to the floor. His ears were ringing. He felt flushed. He feared he was dying.