The chef who could not smell burned the onions

Dear Delyara, I lost my sense of smell after an infection last year. I am a chef. At first, I told nobody. I tasted obsessively, watched colors, timed everything, and relied on memories of aromas that no longer arrived. Tonight, I burned onions for the first time in twenty-six years. A young cook noticed the smoke before I did and turned off the heat. The kitchen went silent. Everyone knew. I admitted it then. I said I cannot smell fire, garlic, spoiled cream, coffee, my wife’s skin, or the orange peel my father used to rub over roast duck. My staff looked frightened, perhaps for me, perhaps for the restaurant. I finished service while another chef checked every pan. After closing, I sat alone with a bowl of soup I created years ago. It tasted salty, warm, and flat. Customers once said it reminded them of childhood. I could no longer find the part of it that carried memory. My wife says I am still a chef because cooking is more than smell. She is right in the way loving people are right when they are trying to keep you from falling. Tonight, I am not sure whether I burned one pan of onions or the evidence of the person I knew how to be.