Supplemental

Marcus's hands always smelled like oranges. Six years on the vitamin C production line would do that to you—the concentrated citrus extract coating everything, settling into the creases of his palms, the spaces between his fingers. His wife used to say she could track his movements through the house by the scent. Stronger near the coffee maker where he paused each morning. Faint in the bedroom where he collapsed each night.

Now she was gone, and the orange scent was just another thing in his life that manufactured health he couldn't feel.

"Water systems look good," Elena said, snapping her notebook shut. She came quarterly—water quality inspector, clipboard and thermos and crisp blue blouse that never seemed to wrinkle. "Though your cooling tank could use maintenance."

Marcus nodded, not meeting her eyes. The production line hummed behind him, thousands of vitamin pills clicking through metal chutes. Little promises of wellness that weren't keeping his marriage together.

"You okay?" Elena asked.

He looked at her then. Really looked. She was thirty-eight, maybe forty. A ring line on her finger, pale against tan skin. His own ring felt heavy, a weight he hadn't figured out how to remove yet.

"My wife left," he heard himself say. "Three weeks ago."

Her expression didn't change. Not surprise, not pity. Just understanding. "My husband's been gone since January."

The cooling tank vibrated against his back. Somewhere, water was circulating, keeping temperatures steady, maintaining conditions for vitamins that wouldn't fix loneliness or insomnia or the hollow ache of waking up alone in a house that still held echoes of someone else's laughter.

"You smell like oranges," Elena said.

"Job hazard."

"I used to work in a juice factory," she said, and something in her voice shifted. "Before this. My hands smelled like oranges for months after I quit."

"Does it go away?" Marcus asked.

Elena stepped closer. Her hand brushed his—the briefest contact, water-cool fingertips against skin that still carried the ghost of citrus. "Eventually."

She didn't pull away. Neither did he.

Behind them, the production line continued its rhythm. Health in pill form, vitamin C by the thousand, orange-scented promises rolling off the assembly line toward people who believed something bought could fix what was broken inside them.

Marcus let his fingers interlace with hers. The water tank hummed its steady song. The orange scent rose between them, sharp and sweet and somehow, impossibly, like hope.