It’s been obvious for weeks now, the butts piling up beneath the ficus’s leaves or underneath the bed. When I start finding them in the corners of the kitchen, I finally say something to Lauren. She sighs, says she’ll have a word with him. Asks me not to make a big deal over it. Says he only has one or two when he’s stressed.

“He’s a cat,” I say. “What can he possibly be stressed about?” Lauren used to smoke Virginia Slims, well into her thirties, then gave them up for good when we started trying in earnest. Lately, she says she has dreams about them—not smoking them, just holding and gesturing with them like some silver screen starlet—but she doesn’t miss them. Says she can’t stand the taste anymore.

“We don’t know what he’s going through,” she says. “These are stressful times.”

“He’s supposed to leave them in his litter box. He promised he’d cut back,” I say.

“I said I’ll have a word with him. Just…go easy on him.”

I finish my drink and let the matter drop. I don’t mention my suspicions that she secretly encourages his habit, that he didn’t simply happen to find her old lighter in her sock drawer, that she only pretends to take my side when I yell at him to stop ashing on the carpet. But maybe I should go easy on him and be more like Lauren. She’s calmer now. She’s taken up baking. Her libido’s the highest it’s ever been, even higher than when we were last trying, until the fourth miscarriage made us think about other outlets. Golf maybe. Or canoeing. But Lauren says country clubs are too stuffy, and I get seasick on even the smallest boat.

So we got a cat. Not this cat. He came later, and we almost didn’t get him at all, not after I backed across the first cat thinking I’d run over the neighbor kid’s slightly lumpy—and very squeaky—ball. Not after the second one, just a kitten, died from attempting the #TidePod Challenge he saw on TikTok. The third lasted the longest—seven months—before finally chewing through the cord of my Peloton, completely voiding its warranty. If this one dies of lung cancer, at least it will take a while.

“I still don’t understand where he gets them,” I say the next day after scooping turds and a half dozen Marlboro Reds from his litter box.

“You know how cats are,” Lauren says from the kitchen.

I nod, but in truth I don’t. I’d asked him if he got them from the neighbor’s dog—a deranged chihuahua mix with a wheezy two-pack-a-day bark—but he gave me a baleful look and I dropped the subject.

Lauren comes out with a bottle of wine and two glasses.

“What’s this for?”

“It’s been a long week,” she says and fills a glass for me then turns off the television, an episode of Law & Order I’d seen but couldn’t remember.

“I was watching that,” I say.

“I thought we could cuddle. Maybe try that thing we talked about.” She sits close and rests her head against my shoulder. The stench of tobacco floods my nose. Her hair reeks of it.

“You’ve been smoking! With him!” I stand and jostle her glass. Wine sloshes all over her pants; she had to be wearing white.

“Christ!” She hurries to the bathroom and starts running water. I trail behind, muttering sorry over and over. She peels off her pants. She’s not wearing underwear and stands naked from the waist down with her pants soaking in the sink. When she sees me watching in the mirror, she closes the door.

I drain my glass. The cat’s sitting on top of the bookshelf, watching me, a Marlboro hanging from his lips. Asshole, I mouth and turn the television back on.

I finish the bottle by myself then switch to whiskey. Lauren’s upstairs, on her phone or maybe asleep. The cat is on the couch with me, threatening to knock my glass off the coffee table until I distract him with the Marlboro Gear catalog. He only needs a thousand more points before he earns a sleeping bag. “What do you want a sleeping bag for,” I say, but wonder if it’s Lauren who would want it, how she’s always saying we don’t get outdoors enough, even though I remind her about my bad back that’s going to be worse now, after sleeping on the couch, and there’s no way I’ll be up for that sex move she wants to try, the one I’d watched with fascination, trying and failing to understand the physics of it.

——————————

I wake late and hungover. Lauren’s already in her office, headset on, smoothing things over with a client. I should shave, at least shower. Instead, I change my shirt and brush the stale taste of whiskey from my gums, swish and swallow some Listerine. When she’s off her call, I tell her I’m making a Wawa run and ask if she wants coffee or donuts, but she still has her headset on. I can’t tell if she’s ignoring me or can’t hear me. I don’t bother asking again. It’s not until I’m already backed out of the garage that I notice the cat in the passenger seat. He's licking his ass. He doesn’t stop until I pull into the Wawa.

“Wait here,” I tell him after I finish pumping gas. “And don’t light up.” He leans his head out the window and ignores me, his eyes on the passing traffic.

I get two iced lattes and a half-dozen donuts. I consider getting something for the cat, but he’s doing Atkins, and besides, he’d only want another pack of Marlboros. On the way to check out, I grab a case of Coors even though Lauren wants me to cut back. But they’re on sale, and I can keep them in the garage so she won’t notice, maybe hide them behind the folding camp chairs we’d gotten back when we thought we’d use them. Maybe if we had a tent. I try to remember how many Marlboro points those cost and ask the clerk how much for a carton.

I almost drop my purchases when the explosion goes off, a giant fireball that engulfs the pump and sets my car on fire. Clerks run out of the store to watch. Someone yells to call the fire department. “I told him to not light up,” I say to no one and slump to the sidewalk. Black smoke billows from beneath my car’s hood. I can’t remember if the insurance has lapsed or not.

I crack open a beer. It seems the thing to do. A fire engine’s already pulling up, unspooling its hoses. It’s then that I see the cat, half his fur singed and his whiskers missing. He limps up to me, and I offer him a swig of beer. He shakes his head. I pull out a cigarette for him. Light it. Then light one for myself. It doesn’t taste too bad. It doesn’t taste like anything really.