IMOGENE
DAILY SPECIALS
Red Wine, Elk Meat Chili with Corn Bread and Drink .75¢
Friday’s Pie - Hot Apple Pie à la mode .50¢
THE DAY AFTER the flood a crowd of red flannel-clad hunters came in for chili, beer, and bullets. I grabbed the cookie jar, went upstairs, and plopped down for a smoke. Tula was at the kitchen table working on her alphabet. I set two Oreos on a napkin in front of her and said, “Here, honey.”
She crunched her face, grimaced at the cookies, and looked at Solly, who was lying on the floor at her feet. She stared at the Oreos, then at Newt, who was in a bucket on the floor.
“What is it, sweetie?” I sat next to her. She scooted away. I finally asked, “Why do you always move away from me?”
“You stink.”
“What? I bathed . . . deodorant, perfume. Is it onions from the chili?” I smelled my hands.
“No,” she said. “It’s them . . . you smell like mommy’s boyfriends.”
“Oh!” I said, quickly dousing my cigarette. “Honey, I—”
“They all stinked like them cigarettes.” She looked down at her cookies and flicked at them with her finger. “You stink like them.”
“Well,” I said, wondering how many boyfriends her mommy had had, “I’ve tried to quit before. Maybe with your help, I can do it this time. You should have said something before—”
“House smells like ’em, too.” She jumped up and ran to her room. Solly followed.
As she slammed her door I suddenly realized the times when Tula was more at ease were when we were outside. But here in my apartment, our home, she was always distant, almost angry. Could it be, all these months, just the smell of smoke?
***
For six months after Christina died the red walls of our apartment had closed in on me. The rooms spun, I gasped for air. The smell of her was everywhere—baby powder, baby lotion, clean jumpers, folded diapers—everywhere, an invisible army of sweet-smelling grief.
Thomas always told me to sit in the chair by the window so I could breathe in the ocean. He never understood that was where I held her the most—in that overstuffed, cozy chair. In that chair, the room closed in on me more than anywhere. Tears attacked, balls of fire blazing through enemy tunnels to the front lines. “It’s just a chair,” he’d say. Just a chair. He didn’t understand we were locked in grief, a tapestry of bondage woven so tight it threatened my sanity.
I remember Thomas left for a two-week business trip. While he was gone I painted the kitchen and living room a light lemon chiffon. I gave that chair to a stranger who stopped by. His truck was packed with haphazard furniture, so I asked him if he needed a nice chair.
“Hell, yeah!” he said. “The wife kicked me out and left me with nothin’.”
After he loaded it into his truck, he tilted his cigarette pack my way and I took one. He offered me a light, took that too. I learned to smoke as his red taillights blinked at the stop, our green chair disappearing for parts unknown.
It was the only way. If I knew which neighbor had it or what house it was in, it would be too tempting.
I jumped up from the table and threw my cigarettes in the garbage. “Tula May,” I called down the hallway. “What’s your favorite color?”
It was time to paint again. It was the only way to get rid of the smell of smoke. I couldn’t erase her bad memories or whatever she experienced with those tyrants, but I could get rid of reminders, and if I could start smoking I sure as hell could quit. How hard could it be?