The Last Cigarette

Thin, brightly colored lips pursed around their final cigarette, flecks of pink staining the familiar manilla color of death.

The doctors said it had to be the last one. Something about how her momma had died of lung cancer when she was sixty five, and the nurse’s face when she probed Annabelle with the stethoscope said it all. No more ashtrays, no more lighters. No. More. Cigarettes.

With one last intimate draw, Annabelle said goodbye to the American Spirit, and, abashed with resentment, washed the pale blue ashtray in the sink–just like her momma taught her. She’d lived in the Meridian for sixty five years. Momma Juliette lived there long before her. She had eloped after the war. Annabelle applied a fresh layer of lipstick, checked her hair under the pale yellow light, and….

She sat down, tears staining her face. Juliette Lewis had died 25 years ago, and Annabelle  hadn’t thought about her in years. Annabelle couldn’t even remember the last time she’d visited her own mother’s grave, even though it was just two blocks away on the corner of E. Davis and Burr, on the downhill face of the gaveyard.

Silently, so as not to wake her fellow second floor residents, she dabbed her eyes on a napkin–she couldn’t find any handkerchief, and changed into her Sunday best. Before she left, she checked her lipstick twice in the mirror, perfecting the rosy color that she simply would not be seen without.

Even though it was a Saturday, even though Annabelle was working nights at Dan’s and she would normally be asleep, and even though she’d be wearing the same outfit tomorrow for church, she grimly proceeded towards the historically black part of the cemetery.

Juliette’s grave was simple and beginning to show signs of wear. The tombstone was granite, and her name was etched into a black aluminum plate with silver letters etched into it.

Meekly, Annabelle croaked, “Hey momma, I know it’s been a long time since I’d spoke to ya, wanted to let you know that I quit smoking. And,”

She paused to put a small orange pebble on the stone.

“I’ll come to visit you more often, as long as you’ll have me,” Annabelle said.

A drop upon her hand prompted a long gaze towards the sky. A storm was moving in, but the sun, and Juliette, were still smiling down upon the city.