The lighter warmed the longer I held it, and I wondered how I should smoke or who I should smoke like. I could, maybe, smoke like my sister, Paige, cigarette always held close to her face between drags. Or I could smoke like Mom’s boyfriend, Frick: take tiny, tiny puffs, but expel the largest cloud of smoke. Then there was Mom, who only lit her cigarette, took one drag, and then forgot she even held it until the ash bent and then she flicked it, barely making the ashtray.

But then I realized I couldn’t smoke the way they did, because I was supposed to be Grammy’s little brother. Go with it, Mom said in my head.

I took the cigarette from my mouth, dried the moist filter as best I could, and then put it back between my lips. As I did with the woodstove at home, I flicked the lighter, except instead of putting flame to birch bark or newspaper, I touched the flame to tobacco. It caught, sizzled, and smoke rose up, stung my eyes. Smoke dived down, burned my throat.

Don’t cough, I told myself. Don’t cough.

The coffeemaker stopped dripping.

And then I coughed. Grammy laughed.

“Think you’d be used to it,” Grammy said. “Mom did say you were digging into the family’s blessing tobacco. Said she couldn’t catch you, but knew you were doing it.”

She was talking to Robbie, so I didn’t say anything.

I tried the cigarette again. It was easier on the throat, but it was coarse, like swallowing sand.

“Mistys are my favorites,” Grammy said. “Harsh but not too harsh.”

“I agree,” I said.

Grammy laughed. She reached in the cupboard and took down two white mugs, red lipstick faintly staining the rims.

“Sugar? Cream?” she said.

“Both,” I said.

She fixed the coffee, set mine in front of me, and took a seat. My ash was getting long, and so I flicked the cigarette over the ashtray. The ashes flung up and over and landed on the other side of the table, and Grammy swiped them to the floor.

Grammy lit her own cigarette, took a drag, and set it down on the table, the lit end dangling off. She picked up her coffee, blew on it sharply, and sipped.

I could have smoked more of the cigarette, but I butted it. I didn’t even sip my coffee twice before Grammy offered me another Misty.

“Go on,” she said. “Help yourself.”

“I’m okay,” I said. My throat hurt.

“No, no,” she said. “Please. Have another.”

“That’s okay, Frances. Really.”

Grammy sipped her coffee and then set the mug down. “Have another,” she said.

By the seventh cigarette, I realized Grammy was setting me up. Or setting Robbie up. I was sitting in that chair, watching Grammy grow angrier and angrier, forcing cigarette after cigarette.

“Smoke another,” she said after I butted each one.

I was being stubborn—I could have run home. But I stayed until my body couldn’t take it anymore, until my head was banging and banging, until the coffee acid in my stomach begged to rise up and out.