Page 63 of Now and Forever

“Let that be the last time you do what you’ve just done.”

We could cut the tension with a knife.

I don’t understand his anger, but I do understand my indignation. Nobody treats me like that. Without giving it a second thought, I pick up the cigarette pack on the table, pull one out, and light it. Take that!

Flabbergasted, Eric stares at me as Marta and Flyn watch. An instant later, he takes the cigarette out of my mouth and throws it in the sink. But no. That won’t stand. I pluck another cigarette and light it. He repeats his actions.

“Wait, are you going to go through all my cigarettes?” protests Marta as she snatches the pack.

“Uncle, Judith’s done something wrong,” says the boy.

His child’s voice touches my heart, but, seeing that neither Marta nor Eric is saying anything, I turn to him. “And you, how can you be such a snitch?”

“Smoking is bad,” he says.

“Look, Flyn, you’re just a boy. You should stay quiet and—”

Eric cuts me off. “Don’t pick on the boy, Jude. He did what he had to do.”

“Get you pissed off is what he had to do?”

“Yes,” he says quite confidently. He turns to his sister. “I think it’s disgusting you smoke and that you encouraged Jude to smoke. She doesn’t smoke.”

Oh no! I smoke whenever the hell I feel like it.

“You’re wrong, Eric,” I say angrily. “You don’t know if I smoke or not.”

“I’ve never seen you smoke in all this time,” he says, ill-humoredly.

“If you haven’t seen me smoke, it’s because I’m not a habitual smoker,” I say. “But I assure you there are times when I like to smoke a cigarette or two. This isn’t the first cigarette I’ve ever had, and it’s not by any means the last. No matter what you think.”

He stares at me. I stare back. He’s daring me. I dare him back.

“Uncle, you said there was to be no smoking, and both she and Marta are smoking,” insists the little monster.

“Flyn!” I say, seeing Marta’s passivity.

Eric looks at me very seriously and says, “Jude, you will not smoke. I will not allow it.”

Oh my God, did he really just say that?

My heart is beating so fast, I know this won’t end well.

“C’mon, stop kidding around. You’re not my father, and I’m not ten years old.”

“Jude ... don’t make me mad!”

That “don’t make me mad!” makes me laugh. Marta is incredulous.

“Eric ... you’ve already madememad.”

“What’s going on?” says Eric’s mother as she steps into the kitchen and sees the four of us. She spots the cigarettes in Marta’s hands and exclaims, “Oh good! Give me one, love. I’m dying to smoke.”

“Mother!” protests Eric.

“Oh, Eric, a little bit of nicotine will relax me,” she says, wrinkling her brow.

“Mother!” Eric protests again.

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