Anna was supposed to die of cancer, but a heart attack has come first. She’s smoked three packs a day for the last thirty-five years, since the day I was born — the same day she gave me up for adoption. She has an addiction, otherwise known as grief. If it weren’t for grief, perhaps the cigarette companies would shrivel up and blow away.
I consider this as I stand, smoking, in the drizzle of Spokane, outside the hospital where my birth mother is dying. I do not know her, really. One Sunday morning two years ago, she called me at my home in Denver, where I’ve lived for eight years with my husband, Peter. Over the noise of the dishwasher I could hear the telltale croak of a lifelong smoker. I didn’t smoke — not yet.
