I don’t know why I remember the month my mother picked up smoking. Up until then, only my dad smoked. He grew up in a poor rural town in Northeast China where cigarettes were a traded commodity in companionship, in belonging. You don’t reject a cigarette from a loved one.
So when my mother started smoking, I felt that suddenly the world had gone terribly wrong. I was a nosy child, always listening in the dark hallways at 2AM to get a full picture of the screaming going on in their bedroom. I’d read some of her emails a couple days before, since she often asked me to remember her passwords for her. I’m not sure why she didn’t think that I’d go through her emails like precious stones; but then again I've always had a penchant for digging up information not meant for me. Through these emails and some other context clues happening around my house, I deduced the reason for this Great War and kept it buried in my throat like a rock.
The smoke swirled so thickly in the bedroom that I couldn’t see my mother’s figure in the bed. I remember her hand floating back and forth a couple times, nonchalantly, before stubbing out the butt of her cigarette on the side table. Throughout my whole childhood I feared my mother more than anything, so naturally I immediately stormed to my father and demanded that he stop smoking. I think I was unable to reckon with the possibility that the detestable habit was coming from her. He laughed in a harsh, disbelieving way and said “It’s your mother this time! Go ask her to stop.” I fumed, not sure what to do with myself other than to repeat my request. My world was tipping on its balance - I couldn’t comprehend telling my mother to stop anything.
Eventually she did stop. I think she was trying to make a point, in the heat of the tunnel-vision of self destructive anger and melodrama. I will remember empathizing with her 12 years later, when after a fight with Lila I wildly daydreamed about wandering barefoot through the streets of Berkeley at night and throwing myself in front of cars just to prove a point. I don’t even remember what I was angry about - it wasn’t important.