Ohana

Cigarette

I stare at the pack of cancer in my hand, studying it.

It's just a box full of white sticks.

How can something so thin and breakable be so dangerous?

I shift my position on the hotel balcony, staring at the cigarette box.

Emily needs to stay away from my niece, and once I smoke my first full cigarette, I'll go inside and tell him that.

My feet sit, propped on the balcony.

I hear the sliding glass door open, close. Silence.

There's footsteps, and Spencer leans against the railing next to my feet. His eyes study my face, trailing down to the cigarette box, and the lighter on my chest.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

I open the box and pluck A cigarette from the container.

"How can something so small and frail be so deadly?" I ask.

He's quiet. The silence envelops me, and I can only hear the hum of the AC units, and the cars rushing down the street below us.

"Tobacco." Spencer says quietly.

I pick up the lighter, flicking my thumb across the trigger. A flame juts out, and I hold the white end of the cigarette to the flame. Spencer watches as I take a long, slow drag, puffing out the smoke, into the air.

I hold it out to him, and he shakes his head. I shrug, flicking the embers to the ground.

"Ever smoke before?" I ask. He shakes his head.

"You?"

I nod.

"Yeah. I stole a pack from my foster mother and smoked it in the basement." I take another drag, blowing the smoke out. "She lives right there." I point my cigarette to the house across the street. He looks at it, and then turns back to me.

"How much have you had to drink?" He asks when I take another drag. I laugh out the smoke, shaking my head.

"I haven't had a drip, darlin'."

Spencer

I'm astonished that somebody so incredible beautiful can consume something so ugly.

She says she hasn't had a drink, but there's a paper bag next to her, an open beer between her legs, and her hair is a mess. Plus, her eyes are droopy.

She's drunk, one hundred percent drunk.

So I lean back against the railing and watch at my beautiful wife inhales cancer into her lungs.

"I'm good darlin', you can go inside." She wags her cigarette towards the door.

She's not a mean drunk.

In fact, she's a very loving drunk, funny, even, but tonight, she's just...calm. She's eerily calm, smoking a cigarette.

I let out a slow breath and walk into the hotel, sliding the door shut.

"Is that..." Mom sniffs my shirt. "Spencer, were you smoking?"

"Nope, ask my wife if she was though."

She looks out the back door. I look at my brother.

"Well?" He asks.

It's infuriating, the destruction my wife's sister causes. She's like a tornado, ripping through life and destroying everything in it's path.

She instilled hope in my brother, hope that she'd changed, that she could be the woman he wants.

She instilled hope in my niece, hope that she can have a Mom.