It smells like Emily today. I cannot find the words to describe this scent, but then again, I never try. I could go on and on about her face, her hair, the clothes she wore; but to capture, in words, what only my nose knows is not only impossibly difficult, it’s sacrilege.

We used to meet on spring afternoons beneath an old maple tree near the gates of Emily’s school. I looked forward each day to seeing her face, her long, dirty-blond hair, her large, brown eyes, and the cluster of tiny freckles orbiting her small nose. Her mouth was also small, with thin wet lips. She refused to wear braces; she rather liked the little gaps between her four top front teeth and said orthodontic surgery was for the vain and unconfident.

When Emily and I met under the maple tree, I always wore grey flannel pants, a white shirt, and a thin black tie with yellow stripes; my school uniform. Emily had a standard plaid skirt-navy stocking-white blouse uniform at her school, but she managed to find little ways to stand out. Sometimes it was green nail polish, sometimes it was big, hanging earrings with crosses or stars or moons. Once she went a whole month with her hair tied up in red and yellow Jamaican braids, and the headmaster had to send four letters home before Emily finally had them removed. In the spring of 1986, Emily had taken to wearing a floppy beige sun hat she rescued from her grandmother’s attic.

I will not attempt to describe the scent that I am detecting so faintly, lest I betray the one last thing that I still hold sacred in this life, but experiencing it makes me believe more and more what the scientists say about the connections between memory and the sense of smell.

Today Emily’s scent is especially strong in the basement, where I am gathering my tomatoes for the day. I pick ten with my wrinkled hands. My elbows ache each time I pull one from the vines. Most of the tomatoes are still more green than red, but I’ve little choice if I don’t want to go hungry. I fill two buckets with water from my tank to wash my tomatoes in. Melvin the cat comes down, mewing like he always does when he hears the water splashing against the plastic insides of the buckets. I shoo him away. I already fed him his feline hydration tablet this morning. Melvin only thinks he’s thirsty.

I stand over one of the buckets, hold a tomato to my chest and drop it into the water. The splash is refreshing. I continue with the rest of the tomatoes, releasing them for soaking one at a time. With each drop and splash, the concrete floor of the basement gets wetter, and I wiggle my bare toes in the shallow puddles. Emily’s scent grows stronger when I play. The water in the soaking bucket is growing very dark, really brown; nearly finished. My toes are practically dancing in the wetness, and all these memories come washing back.

Emily liked The Cure, had the names of all the band members scribbled on her school binder. I liked The Smiths, but Emily found Morrissey’s lyrics too depressing. We both agreed, however, on the merits of Gary Cooper.

I used to get to the old maple tree first, so I’d throw my books down and sit on the grass to wait for Emily to come. Sometimes I’d lie down on my back and peer up through the branches and leaves, to the bright blue spring sky. I imagined the sky was a painter’s canvas, and I went through all of the necessary steps to create the finished product. First a large brush to cover the entire canvas in blue, then a round brush to produce the illusion of green leaves, and a thin, straight brush to add in the branches. The final touches would be to place shadows in the appropriate places, but that was delicate work for delicate hands, and I never tried, even in my mind. In my mind, I left that part for Emily.

The soaking is done, but before I transfer my tomatoes to the rinsing bucket I place my hands in its cool, clean water. I swish them around, imagine my whole body is taking a bath or, even better, that I’m swimming. I cup my hands together and snap them up quickly, splash my face with water. Drops roll off my chin, down my neck, and tickle my chest beneath my shirt. I’d stick my whole head in the water if I didn’t need it to rinse my tomatoes. I give my face another splash. I run my fingers through my damp hair and shake my head. The end of my nose feels itchy; there’s a drip of water hanging there. I stick my tongue out, like I was sticking it out at somebody, and try to reach for it.

Emily used to stick her tongue out at people. Like her older brother, Randolph, who would come around looking for her when we’d dawdle under the maple tree too long. "Come on Emily," he’d snort, not even looking at me. Randolph wore casual clothes in the spring of 1986; short-sleeved plaid shirts buttoned halfway, baggy khaki pants, and brown topsiders with no socks; he was allowed to dress this way, at McGill. Only a couple years before, however, when he was a senior at my school, he wore the same boring uniform I did, like everybody else at our boys’ school. Now he was a man, or so he thought, a college man. "All right Emily, let’s go. Mom wants you home. Don’t make me drag you away." Emily would stick her tongue out at Randolph. He’d grab her by the arm and haul her off the ground, as if being her older brother gave him the right to be rough. I never knew what to do in that situation. I hated Randolph, and I wanted to defend Emily, but I was shy to interfere in family business. I didn’t think it was possible to hate anybody as much as I hated Randolph when we were kids, when he used to make me feel so helpless. Emily would laugh while Randolph pulled her away to his car, though – he’d have to work hard to actually get her upset. She’d look back and wink at me. In ’86, while her brother yanked her by the arm through the school gates, Emily would use her free hand to tap the top of her floppy sun hat, pushing the brim down over her eyes. I’d sit in the grass with my arms wrapped around my knees and try to smile, but all the while grinding my teeth and boiling inside – infuriated with Randolph but even more so with myself for letting him take Emily away from me. My only solace was the knowledge that we’d meet under the maple tree again the next day.