At home

John stopped as he grabbed onto the door knob. The strong, and distinct, smell of smoke overwhelmed his sense of smell. Taking another sniff, the odor was clearly from the inside. Now, he knew that before his birth, his mother had been a smoker. Of course that changed when she was pregnant and her new responsibilities as a mother. Over the years John had suspicions that she had never fully given up the habitat, occasionally finding a cigarette butt out back or the slight undertone of smoke, but he never pressed the issue. John imagined that his mother smoked when she was under a lot of stress. Hey everyone had their own way of blowing off steam. This was different though, almost blatant. Before she had attempted to hide her habitat. But now he could smell the smoke from even outside.

Ever since John father's ****, the relationship between hid mother and him had changed, deepening in a way. He were her whole world. John father had enough foresight to take out a life insurance police some years before, which allowed his mother to never work another day in her life. With this freedom, John were the center of her attention. Unlike most of his peers Joh. embraced this love. The maternal bond between a mother and her son, evolved into a friendship. Someone John could share his concerns with, for example how to handle his crush on one of his classmates, Allison. She was his mother and his friend.

Taking a deep breath, John composed himself and turned the knob.

"Wow, Mom, smells like a chimney in here, isn't it too early to be lighting up the fireplace?" John joked as he entered, hoping to cut any tension that might exist. Unknowingly his joke went to deaf ears.

Instead John stopped dead in his tracks to the sight he saw. Normally kept the house in an immaculate state. John remembered several times where he had accidentally worn his shoes upstairs. Nary was there an indication of dust in the house.

Some hidden away crystal ashtray had been taken from its hiding place and now as proudly, if he could call it that, on display in the living room. To fit the picture, a half used, he could still see a slight glow, cigarette laid dangling from the ashtray. Two more buds accompanied the cigarette.

John eyes narrowed. Very odd. But not alarming. Something must have happened.

Swiftly moving forward, kicking off his shoes , he picked up the cigarette to extinguish it. As John lifted it up, he noticed something. Bringing it forward, he saw a small red ring circumvent the cigarette's filter. Lipstick? Shaking his head, he extinguished it without a second thought.

John paused for a moment, before taking a hold of the ashtray. Might as well dispose of the evidence and play the fool.

As he made the way to the garbage, which happened to be stored in a bin outside, John heard some shuffling in the kitchen. Must be his mother. Not wanting his presence to be known, John silently crept to the garbage and took care of his mother's "stress reliever". John returned the ashtray to its position in the living room, then redirected to the kitchen.

"Mom, I'm home." John pronounced, . "What happened to picking me u-"

John stopped mid-sentence as he rounded the corner. For the second time today, in less than ten minutes, he were stopped dead in his tracks.

His mother was the definition of conservative, prim housewife. She kept **** in the house, but they were things of his father since she was not a drinker. For years the various bottles of whisky and bourbons had gone untouched, collecting dust. One of those fore mentioned bottles was open and the contents were in a glass in his mother's hand. His mother was completely oblivious as her back was turned to John.

"Hey, mom..."

No answer.

John motioned forward as she took a swig from her glass.

"John...glad you made it...home." She took another deep gulp from the glass. "Sorry, I got caught up with some activities this afternoon."