Chapter 2Smoked Out of My Marriage

"Thomas, what's that smell on your breath?"

Diana wrinkled her nose as she brushed past me the next morning.

Even after brushing my teeth twice, I couldn't hide it. I mumbled something about a sore throat. She didn't press further, just grabbed her purse and left.

I took half the day off and went to the hospital to see a pulmonologist, needing to understand exactly how serious this nodule was.

The doctor reviewed the scan and looked up. "Your wife's nodule has a ground-glass appearance, but the margins are relatively well-defined. We'll rescan in three months. If there's no growth, we'll just keep monitoring it."

"And if it grows?"

"If it grows, we'll take further steps. The worst-case scenario is always a possibility, but it's too early to jump to conclusions."

"She doesn't smoke. Could it be secondhand smoke?"

"Secondhand smoke is a risk factor, certainly. But so are kitchen fumes, air pollution—it's hard to isolate a single cause."

I sat in my car in the hospital parking lot for a long time.

Hard to isolate a single cause. It sounded so clinical, so logical. But all I could see was that photo.

The midnight rooftop, Curtis with a cigarette in his mouth, Diana by his side.

I couldn't help myself. I opened Instagram and started scrolling back through Curtis's feed, post by post.

Three months ago: a group photo after late-night work. Curtis stood next to Diana, a lit cigarette pinched between his fingers.

Five months ago: a short video from a team-building dinner. Curtis lit a cigarette at the table, and Diana sat directly across from him, making no move to lean away or cover her nose.

Seven months ago: a photo from a business trip. Curtis was smoking in a hotel corridor, and Diana was leaning against the wall, deep in conversation with him.

In every single picture, she never flinched. She never moved away.

I suddenly remembered our first year of marriage.

I had been smoke-free for barely six months. At a holiday party, a colleague had slipped me a cigarette. Before I could even reach for a lighter, Diana marched across the hall, snatched the cigarette from my hand in front of everyone, snapped it in half, and tossed it into a trash can.

"I said no smoking, and I meant it."

The room went dead silent for three agonizing seconds. My colleague tried to laugh it off, joking about how my wife kept me on a tight leash, but Diana didn't even crack a polite smile. She just grabbed my arm and dragged me out.

She refused to speak to me on the ride home, and I spent the entire drive apologizing.

"I was just holding it. I didn't even light it."

"Holding it means you wanted to smoke. Wanting to smoke means you haven't truly quit. And not quitting means you don't respect my words."

Her logic was airtight, leaving me with no room to argue. From that day on, I didn't touch alcohol or tobacco, and even my smoking colleagues learned to put out their cigarettes whenever I was around.

Eight years of this. And in the end, a growth appeared on her lung anyway.

And I was the last one to know why.