03.S10 Chapter Three, Snippet Ten

New Prairie Woman
Susie Rosso Wolf
Chapter Three, con't

It was December 18^th, 2002 when I sat up in my overstuffed rocking chair with a blanket wrapped around my head and body. I was resting my eyes when I felt a presence in the room. I opened them to see Curtis, our roommate and partner in ownership of our home for many years, standing over me. “What are you doing?” I asked him.

“I’m watching you.”

“Why?” 

“Because I’m worried about you, you don’t seem to be breathing very well and it’s late, you should be in bed.”

“I can’t go to bed, I can’t breathe lying down.”

“You need to go to the doctor tomorrow.”

“I know, Curtis, I will.”

“Good. Can I bum a smoke?”

 I looked down at the coffee table where my pack of Marlboro Lights was sitting with a lighter on top of them. I barely lifted my hand to point at them and said, “Take them. Get them away from me. Go ahead and smoke the entire pack, I don’t care. Just take them away because I’m never going to smoke again.”

“Yeah, right,” he said with a sarcastic chuckle.”

“I mean it Curtis, I’ll never put one of those dirty rotten things to my lips ever again. Take them away from my sight and from this moment on, there will be no more smoking allowed in this house or anywhere near me.”

“You really mean it?”

“Yes, I really mean it.” I didn’t have the energy for this conversation so I shut my eyes and tuned myself out now. I listened as he walked in front of my chair and picked up the pack of cigarettes. I heard the door to the den open and could hear his footsteps land on the brick front porch landing, and then the door clicked as he shut it behind him. The sound of the lighter triggering underneath his thumb traveled into the den through the open windows. Within an instant I could smell the smoke and was shocked and disappointed that he hadn’t taken me seriously. After his cigarette, Curtis came back into the house, said goodnight in a whisper, and then walked down the hall to his bedroom. It amazed me, how he too, was addicted beyond reason. Here was a person not twenty feet from him only separated by a wall and door, who is very obviously sick and suffering with shortness of breath, and yet, at three in the morning, he needed to smoke. We were all like that. Every one of us was so addicted that in the middle of the night our bodies woke us up with the desire for nicotine. And that’s exactly what Brenda was doing; she was answering the call of that desire. I understood, but it pained me now, as three Hail Mary’s were said on my envisioned rosary as I attempted, once again, to fall asleep.