sixty-two : smoke
They argued about it almost daily, and it nearly always ended the same. He would light his next cigarette with the end of the last one, and Diane would stop yelling and shake her head.
‘For me. Lyle. Please? You’ve gotta quit, love. You really do.’
‘Over my dead body’ he’d rasp, and Diane would purse her lips and turn back to the TV, glaring into the flickering faces of game show contestants and newscasters. She would give him the cold shoulder for the rest of the night, then in the morning it would all be forgotten.
Tonight, he was sitting in his stained recliner by the window when Diane came in at 6:30. He heard the door open, and he turned his head to see her walk heavily into the kitchen. A few seconds later, she appeared in the lounge-room doorway.
‘Where’s the chicken?’
‘What?’ he looked up at her. She stood with one hand on the door frame, her eyebrows raised and accusing.
‘The chicken I asked you to take out for dinner.’
Lyle took a slow drag of his cigarette and exhaled, the smoke lingering around his head in a cloud.
‘In the freezer, I s’pose.’
‘Jesus, Lyle. I asked you to do one thing.’ she stomped back into the kitchen and he heard her muttering as she opened the freezer door. Lyle lit his next smoke. Diane called out to him.
‘We had a walk-in this afternoon.’
‘I saw.’
‘I need to get their breakfast order. When the microwave beeps can you turn the chicken?’
Lyle grunted, staring out the window. The wind threw the rain at strange angles, and for a split second it seemed to make an outline of a person walking towards the office. Diane came back to the lounge room.
‘Lyle? Did you hear me?’
‘Yeah, turn the chicken, I heard.’ He spoke without turning, still staring out the window. Diane stared at the back of his head with a doubtful expression, then opened the front door. As she closed it behind her, she called back to him.
‘Please put that out, Lyle.’
‘Over my dead body.’
Lyle had had the last word, as usual. As soon as she closed the door, the rain whipped against the window and he felt something like a cold fist close around his heart. He didn’t have a chance to move. He stayed sitting in his usual place with his blood frozen in his veins. His cigarette burnt down to a grey stump, and he stopped.
