Chapter 3Smoked Out of My Marriage

That afternoon, I arrived early at her office building, wanting to pick her up and talk about her medical follow-up. My call went unanswered, so I sent a text saying I was waiting downstairs.

I waited for forty minutes.

When she finally walked out of the glass lobby, Curtis was by her side. He was leaning in, saying something to her, and she nodded occasionally, her expression far softer than any she ever showed me.

As they approached the parking lot entrance, Curtis pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. Diana finally spoke up.

"Cut back on those, will you?"

Her tone was gentle, carrying a soft, helpless note of concern.

Curtis chuckled, sliding the pack back into his coat pocket. "Since the director has spoken, I’ll behave."

I watched the entire exchange from my car, my hands gripping the steering wheel until my knuckles went pale.

To him, she said cut back.

To me, she said absolutely not.

Her reaction to him smoking was a gentle, playful warning.

Her reaction to me even holding a cigarette was to humiliate me and throw it away.

Curtis got to decide whether to put his cigarettes away.

But Diana decided whether mine got snapped in half.

Diana didn't notice my car until she was right next to it. She leaned down to peer through the window. "What are you doing here?"

"Picking you up."

She pulled open the door and slid into the passenger seat without a word of thanks, not even asking how long I'd been waiting. Curtis, however, walked over and leaned down to wave at me through the window.

"Hey, Thomas. Long time no see. We should grab dinner sometime."

I gave him a tight nod, forced a smile, and started the engine.

Once we were two blocks away, I finally spoke. "You told Curtis to 'cut back'."

"Yeah. What of it?"

"You told me I wasn't allowed to touch them at all."

Her expression in the rearview mirror didn't even flicker. "That’s different. He’s a colleague; it's not my place to control him. You’re my husband. Of course the standards are different."

"So I get the higher standards?"

"Do you even have to ask?"

She said it as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. I opened my mouth to respond, but then closed it, swallowing the words.

"You look terrible, Thomas."

My childhood friend, Larry, had called me out for a drink. I sat across from him, leaving my glass untouched on the table.

"Diana has a ground-glass nodule on her lung."

Larry’s fork froze mid-air. "How big?"

"Six millimeters."

"Is it serious?"

"Hard to say right now. She has to get another scan in three months."

Larry frowned, thinking it over, and asked cautiously, "But she doesn't smoke. How did that happen?"

I remained silent.

"Secondhand smoke?" he guessed. "Who? You haven't touched a cigarette in eight years, right?"

"It wasn't me."

I took a sip of my drink and told him about Curtis’s social media posts. Larry’s expression grew complicated.

"So you're saying Curtis smokes around her all the time?"

"More than just 'all the time.' I went through his profile for the last six months. There are photos of them together every few days, and in almost every single one, he’s holding a cigarette."

"And she doesn't stop him?"

"She told him to 'cut back'."

Larry was quiet for a long moment before setting his fork down. "Man, maybe you're overthinking this. They're just colleagues. You can't police a coworker the way you police a husband."

"That's what I kept telling myself. But take a look at this." I slid my phone across the table. On the screen was a purchase receipt I had stumbled upon a couple of days ago. It was an Amazon order under Diana’s account—a limited-edition, engraved sterling silver Zippo lighter.

The engraved initials weren't mine.

They were C.W.

Curtis Wells.

Larry stared at the screen for a long time. "When... when was this ordered?"

"A week before our wedding anniversary."

He looked up at me. "And what did she get you for your anniversary?"

"A tie from Macy's. I found the receipt in her purse. It was twenty percent off."

Saying the words out loud made me feel pathetic.

Larry let out a long, slow breath. "Did you confront her about it?"

"No. I know exactly what she’d say. She’d call me paranoid."

"And the lighter?"

"She’ll say it’s just a birthday gift for a colleague. Curtis's birthday is next month. She has a perfectly logical excuse."

"Yeah. If you bring it up, she'll have an airtight explanation, and you won't be able to say a word."

I downed my drink, the alcohol burning all the way down my throat. "Larry, tell me. What does it mean when a woman forces her husband to quit smoking for eight years, won't let him near a cigarette, and then turns around and buys another man an engraved Zippo?"

Larry opened his mouth, but no words came out.

We drank late into the night before I finally took an Uber home. When I opened the front door, I caught a faint scent of tobacco. It wasn't the smell of a burning cigarette, but rather the rich, heavy notes of high-end home fragrance.

There was a new diffuser on the coffee table that Diana had bought. I picked it up to check the label: Woody Tobacco & Oud.

She supposedly couldn't stand the smell of actual smoke, yet she bought tobacco-scented diffuser oils for our living room.

I set the bottle back down and walked into the bedroom. Diana was already asleep, her phone lying face-down on the nightstand next to her pillow. The screen was still glowing, showing an active chat window.

I didn't mean to pry, but my eyes caught the last exchange in her notifications.

Curtis: Thanks for today. Let me buy you dinner sometime.

Diana: Don't worry about it. Get some sleep.

At the end of her text was a little crescent moon emoji.

She never used emojis with me.

Our own text history was a barren wasteland of short, sterile phrases that read like telegrams.

Home.

Okay.

What time is the meeting tomorrow?

Nine.

Got it.

She couldn't even be bothered to use punctuation, let alone emojis.

I sat on the edge of the bed, watching her sleeping profile, remembering how different she had been back in college. She used to send me long, rambling paragraphs filled with exclamation points and sweet, lingering ellipses, always ending with how much she missed me.

When had that changed?

I couldn't pinpoint the exact moment.

Maybe it was during our first year of marriage when we fought bitterly over buying this apartment. Maybe it was our third year when she got promoted and my career stalled. Or maybe it was even earlier. I didn't know.

All I knew was that now, she sent emojis to Curtis but not to me.

She told Curtis to cut back but banned me from ever touching a cigarette.

She went out of her way to source a limited-edition engraved Zippo for him, but bought me a discounted tie.

Her phone screen lit up again. I glanced down.

Curtis had just posted a new photo—a close-up of a cup of black coffee against a dark window. The caption read: Endless nights.

And the first like on the post?

Diana.

At 1:23 AM.

I turned to look at her. Her eyes were closed, her breathing steady and deep.

She had liked his post right before drifting off to sleep.