Since memories triggered by scent are the strongest…
Ever since and to this very day, the first association he makes with the scent of coffee filling a room is with his father; a man who's height he'd inherit, but not his broad shoulders, and while he does have a charm of his own, one that can lure anyone in to take a liking to him immediately with a smile that broke more hearts than he cared to count, he'd never have the warm laugh of Parker Upshur that'd fill an entire room, that'd demand attention in the best of ways.
He remembers his workshop, a wide room slimmed down by too many things stuffed into it, which always smelled of wood, and coffee. There was always some in here, not so much because his father was the coffee addict his son would grow up to be, but because he liked the smell. A young Miles would take bringing his dad some new cup every so often as an excuse to come over, sit on one end of the workbench while his father cut wood, shaped it into whatever new form he had on mind now, and the coffee would stay between them, emitting it's smell and not being touched. Sawdust settled into the dark surface sooner or later.
Later, the scent would be overdrawn with that of motor oil and fresh sweat as Parker would show him how to fix up a car. It is still there, beneath everything else, settled so close into these walls as the man's own presence is. Unthinkable to remove from here.
Parker smelled of coffee when he brought his children to bed, and of coffee on trips with the car that went from going to school to long drives just for the drive itself, to holiday road trips. He smelled of coffee when Michelle climbed on his shoulders, top of the world. He'd smell of coffee when he listened, with one brow raised and no bad words on his lips, to his son coming out to him, and when his oldest daughter brought home the man she would marry, and later, when he walks her to the altar, beneath the cologne he wears as much as the tears in his eyes upon her unmistakably an adult.
He smelled of coffee when his sixteen-year-old son comes into the workshop a few weeks later with a black eye and a bleeding lip because he has shit taste in boyfriends, only to halt and forget all throbbing pain behind his eye. He smelled of coffee when a heart attack had taken him before his fiftieth over his workbench, untouched cup still steaming.
The entire house seems to carry the scent of coffee for the next days, but it's in this time not the soft and nice smell they all loved, but the bitter one of burnt one.
He only cried after the funeral, the first time since when he was alone in the workplace, fingers running over an unfinished piece for the crib Parker was building for an unborn grandchild.
Twice a year — on the man's birthday and death day — he still puts up an extra cup. Just lets it stand there, untouched. Let it spread it's scent through the room — fill it with some of the warmth as if his dad would just come around, a smile on his lips as he declared he forgot about the cup yet again.
