On the second day of our honeymoon Angelica and I bickered over dinner about
who'd drunk the most from our bottle of Montepulciano. She grabbed her bag
and said she was off to use the toilet. Twenty minutes later I realised she
wasn't coming back. When I opened the door to our hotel suite she was
stretched out on the sofa in front of the TV, smoking a cigarette.
I said, "What's going on? You don't smoke."
She waved the cigarette in the air without taking her eyes off the TV
screen. "I do now."
I said, "Since when?"
She laughed. "Hey, just because we're married it don't mean you know
everything about me." She began blowing perfect smoke rings that opened
outwards as they curled up to the ceiling.
I said, "Angelica, please, the smell is dreadful. Stub it out."
She said, "Jesus Christ. You're my husband, not my father."
She sat up and stubbed out the cigarette. I said, "Thank you." Then she
rummaged around in her bag and lit another. She balanced it between her lips
and took rapid breaths, sending cloudlets of smoke chugging across the room.
She chain-smoked her way through the next day stopping only to eat, sleep
and have sex. I begged her not to, but she wouldn't listen. The following
day she smoked during dinner. That evening she smoked during sex. I woke in
the night and she was sat up in bed smoking. By the time we got home from
the honeymoon she was coughing up her lungs each morning and wandering
around all day in a cumulus haze.
One night I hid her cigarettes while she slept. I had to do this for her own
good. A piercing scream woke me. Doors and drawers opened and slammed
throughout the house as if the place was being ransacked.
She came into the bedroom carrying a carving knife. Her eyes were slits, her
lips drawn tightly together.
"Where's me cigarettes, you bastard?"
I drew the covers up to my chin. "Look, this is getting ridiculous. It's got
to stop."
She stepped closer, waved the knife and shouted, "Me cigarettes!"
I imagined that blade entering my stomach, being twisted, withdrawn,
repeatedly thrust in and out, a red stain spreading outwards across the
white sheets like a cancerous growth, Angelica blowing smoke rings in my
face while I bled to death. "Okay, for God's sake. They're in the car."
I remained in bed, quivering. She returned brandishing a cigarette in one
hand and the knife in the other. She pointed the cigarette at me. "Don't
ever do that again."
When I crept downstairs she was sucking hard on two cigarettes at once.
There was so much smoke I could barely see the TV. She was still sitting
there when I arrived home from work as though she'd become part of the sofa,
her buttocks surgically attached to the seat cushions.
She no longer cooked. She no longer cleaned. She no longer shopped. A hoard
of cigarettes filled the cupboard under the stairs. She puffed and coughed
her way through the days, weeks and months smoking two at a time.
She began smoking three at once, four, and then five, until she was stuck in
a perpetual cycle, lighting up, stubbing out, cramming as many cigarettes
between her lips as she could and sucking them to death, smoke appearing to
leave her body from every orifice. She stank. Her fingers turned brown, her
eyes red. She hawked up gobs of phlegm into a plastic measuring jug and
could barely breathe.
One morning I discovered her collapsed on the floor. I opened all the
windows and paced around the room. The ambulance took forever. She was still
breathing when they loaded her up, a desperate wheeze punctuated by rasping
coughs. They kept the oxygen mask on her all the way to the hospital. It was
the first time I'd seen her without a cigarette since the honeymoon. She
looked peaceful, eyes closed, arms by her sides, fingers at rest. I squeezed
her hand and whispered, "We're going to get you through this, I promise."
I keep a wedding photo next to the TV. In it, she's smiling and her teeth
are white. I keep her clothes in the cupboard under the stairs. I've
repainted the ceiling and still spray Alpine Breeze around the place several
times a day. I think about her often. Sometimes I get upset. I think about
the years we could have spent together and wonder what our children might
have looked like. Then I remind myself that it's what she wanted. She died
doing what she loved.
Each anniversary I open a bottle of Montepulciano, pour a small glass for me
and a large glass for Angelica. I picture her blowing those perfect smoke
rings and drink a toast to the two of us.
