Bread-Scented Candles: Literary/Detective Genre

When she was a little girl, sitting curled up in the sunlit window seat with her nose buried in a book, the smell of fresh-baked bread had always made her smile. It reminded her that she was home, that she was loved, and that when she lowered the book and looked up, she would see her family and her house and her cat. Now she bought the freshly-baked bread-scented candles, one for two dollars from the corner store. She still needed the smell, and as long as she had her nose in a book, she could pretend that if she looked up she would see her home, and her family, and her pet cat. Whenever she looked up, though, she saw her Spartan single's apartment, with its blank white walls and the off-white carpet that always looked dirty no matter how recently she'd vacuumed.