SECOND HAND SMOKE
Shirley McCann

[23 may 2002—proofed for #bookz]

"Those cigarettes are going to kill you one of these days. Don't you want to be around to see your grandchildren grown?"
Howard Easley ignored his wife's customary morning outburst, ground the cigarette butt into the ashtray on the bathroom countertop, and stepped into the shower. While the hum of the pulsing water drowned out her nagging comments, he lathered up and sang out, "What I really don't want to do is listen to your constant bickering for another twenty five years".
At nineteen he had met and married Rosalyn Ross, a charming, petite woman with a rare talent for keeping a home on a tight budget. An underpaid retail worker, Howard had once appreciated what pains his young wife went through to maintain an immaculate house just for the two of them. When their daughter was born, Rosalyn scoured the second-hand stores for baby furniture, hand made all their clothes, and even darned worn socks. She clipped coupons, shopped for specials, and she never wasted money on useless cleaning products. "If you just mix a little ammonia and dish soap, you'll get better results with just a fraction of the cost," she always bragged.
But years later grandchildren arrived, and the tables were suddenly turned. Howard was no longer the center of his wife's attention, and her cleaning routine had become unbearable. Since she baby-sat with their daughter's children during the week, Rosayln now spent evenings and weekends cleaning. Instead of returning to a quiet, cozy home after standing on his feet for eight hours a day, Howard was now greeted by the suffocating odor of ammonia and bleach.
Well, enough is enough, Howard thought. The idea of spending another twenty five years inhaling intoxicating cleaning fumes was enough to make anyone resort to murder.
The plan to remove his wife from his life for good came to him one evening while Rosalyn was making out her grocery list for the next day. Her Saturday morning routine never varied. First she would start the laundry, clean the bathrooms, make the beds, water the garden, spray the roses, dust and vacuum, then do the grocery shopping.
Since Howard played golf every Saturday, all he had to do was check in for his tee time at the crowded golf course, sneak back home, and lock Rosalyn in the bathroom along with the noxious cleaning solution, then wait for the poisonous fumes to consume her.
Howard shut off the water, stepped from the stall, and reached for the neatly folded towel next to the shower door. Rosalyn brushed past him, scooping up dirty clothes, wiping down the fogged mirror, and spraying her own homemade mixture of air freshener.
"If it weren't for me, this place wouldn't be fit to live in," she complained, tossing the soiled laundry into the clothes hamper. "I don't know what you'd do without me."
She reached for the ashtray on the counter, pitched the contents into the commode and flushed. "You really should try to quit this disgusting habit of yours," she said. "These cigarette butts are pure poison if one of the grandkids gets hold of them. Don't you care enough about your family to give up this offensive vise of yours? You know what they say about second-hand smoke."
Howard didn't bother to respond. It was the same one-sided conversation they had every weekend. One that was likely to continue unless he took drastic matters to end it.
Since Rosalyn used their only vehicle to do the grocery shopping, Howard took the city bus for his weekend recreational activities. At the crowded golf course, he hit a couple of balls to establish his presence, then slipped away while no one was paying attention and caught the next bus home.
Inside the house, the washing machine whirred gently, and the strong scent of bleach burned his nostrils. Howard tiptoed through the hallway toward the bathroom, then reached over and turned the lock on the door, pulling it closed.
Terrified one of the grandkids would lock themselves in and search through medicine cabinets, Howard had long ago heeded to his wife's wishes, and reversed the doorknobs on all the bedroom and bathroom doors, so that the locks were on the outside. Now, with no chance for escape, by the time Howard completed his usual eighteen holes of golf, the deadly cleaning fumes will have been enough to do Rosalyn in.
Satisfied that his life was about to take a turn for the better, he walked into the kitchen, poured himself a drink from the tea pitcher on the table, gave Rosalyn a mock salute, and gulped the contents.

At Howard's funeral, Rosalyn wept softly. "Your father never missed his Saturday golf game," she sobbed. "He played every weekend for the past six years. It wasn't like him to suddenly change his mind."
"You can't blame yourself, Mother," her daughter said.
"But I do! If only I'd known, I could have warned him not to drink from the pitcher on the table. You see, every morning after he leaves for work, I empty the ashes from the ashtrays around the house into a pitcher of water. I hide it under the kitchen sink until the weekend, then take it out when it's time to spray the roses. It's the best way I've found to kill the those nasty aphids."
"It wasn't your fault, Mother. If you hadn't managed to get out of the bathroom when you did, you might have been killed too."
"You're right," Rosalyn said, smiling thoughtfully at her daughter. "Thanks to your father's constant badgering about my cleaning habits, I decided to tape an extra key to the bathroom doors on the tops of the medicine cabinets, just in case I accidentally locked myself inside. In a way, your father saved my life with his constant complaining. I only wish my nagging had had the same effect on him. I always told him those cigarettes would kill him someday.”