Maddy pulls it in and holds it in her mouth, swirling thick as water, something she could swallow. Its taste is exactly the same as its color, rich red-brown and warm to the touch.

They got stoned a while ago and now it seems to Maddy that she must keep very still: her head is hollow, filling with the taste and color of this cigar. It’s the dark subtlety of oiled oak paneling, the tang of woodsmoke from the fireplace where her father, the great writer of letters, would sit and hold curling vellum and say nothing for hours on end.