My Smoking Sister

During our trip to the Outer Banks my sister must have smoked at least 300 cigarettes.  She would take a lit nub to bed at night if she could only figure out how to stay alive in the process.  I believe she could easily smoke in her sleep.

She does not hang out with people who don’t smoke, as they would have little in common, and this includes me.  So of course boyfriend Mike is a smoker.  He is a haughty smoker, however, according to my mother, since he still insists on Marlboros, no matter the price.  I believe Penny’s brand today is Doral.  All week, the smell of smoke clung to their clothes like a romantic cloud.

During every meal there would be a look, a head nod, and the next thing you knew there were two empty seats and smoke wafting past the window.  It often happened at check time.  Many hours were spent alone together on the overhanging ocean dunes balcony inhaling toxic love.  Smoking is very sensual, lighting each others cigarettes under the bright moon, over the roiling ocean, until the coughing and spitting begins.

She has a tattoo of a wolf on her shoulder.  She loves dogs and horses.  She really loves dogs.  She loves dogs so much that I can’t spend too much time in her house because I am allergic to dogs.  I believe she uses them to protect herself against me like a Sloman’s Shield.  The smell of the dogs combined with smoke is my idea of hell. 

When I watch movies that include the perfect ideal of happy sisterhood, or laughing sisters hanging out with their mom, it’s no different than an episode of The Twilight Zone.  I want my sister and I to be close.  She is so much closer to other smokers and any stray dog on the street, including that guy she’s dating.

They say you should “choose your own family.”  So I go shopping with friends, I have meals with my husband, I get manicures with my daughter.  I miss my sister even when she’s in the same room with me.  Usually, however, she’s outside smoking.