"Three Cigarette Stories," by Pia Erhardt

The common object of a cigarette provides a nice way of tying together these three stories. The first story explores peaks and valleys of mother daughter tenderness and wounds. In the second story, a mother’s wounds inflicted by her children have little hope for healing: “When did she lose the voice they trusted? The one that said I know how to care for you.” The final story has a haunting inner story involving a 16-year-old girl who has recently lost her mother. She and her stepfather grieve in their awkward ways, but watching private moments of a stranger, a woman, live on her computer monitor, captivates the girl. This vivid trio suggests a parallel in visual art; walking by a triptych of individual panels that come together in a larger panorama. Read the triple feature here at Fictionaut.