MIDNIGHT NICOTINE

She remembered warmth before the noise.

A hand- large, rough, veins shifting under sunburnt skin- wrapped around her smaller one. The man’s wrist had a skull tattoo, faded but still clear enough for a child to trace with her fingertip. He smelled like coffee and smoke and something safe.

Then the shouting began.

Crowds pushing, people running, the air turning heavy with dust and fear. Her hand slipped once, then again, until all that remained was the ghost of his warmth.

“Daddy!”

Her voice cracked against the noise. She tried to run toward the direction of that familiar scent- coffee, smoke, leather- but bodies pressed around her, faces blurred by motion. She saw the tattooed hand reaching for her, stretching through the chaos, and then- gone.

The world turned white for a moment, then grey.

She fell to the ground, crying until her throat burned. But no one stopped. No one looked.

When she woke next, the sky was dark and the street smelled of rain and old food. A man crouched beside her, his breath heavy with alcohol.

“Poor thing,” he muttered. “Where are your parents?”

She didn’t answer. She just stared.

His wife came a moment later, with tired eyes and hands that looked used to scrubbing floors. The woman wrapped a blanket around her.

“We’ll take her,” the woman said softly. “At least she’ll have food.”

“She’ll work, though,” the man added. “We can’t afford another mouth.”

The 6 year old child nodded. She didn’t understand what work meant. She only wanted someone to hold her hand again.

---

Years blurred together after that.

Factories, smoke, the sting of oil on skin. Mornings that began before sunrise and ended long after the stars came out. She learned not to ask questions, not to complain, not to dream.

The woman- she called her Ma - taught her how to sew, clean, fix, lift. The man- Richard Smith- she called him Papa - taught her what anger smelled like. Beer and sweat and disappointment.

At night, when the house went quiet, she’d sometimes press her fingers to her own wrist, as if the tattooed hand might reappear and pull her home.

---

By the time she turned eighteen, she had stopped believing in home.

The factory had worn her thin- her arms ached, her nails were chipped, her back stiff from lifting crates. Richard’s shouting had become worse, and her adoptive mother had learned to stay silent- always cleaning, always hoping the storm would pass.

Nancy decided to change her work.

Not because she believed life could get better, but because she needed air that didn’t smell like rust and fire.

The café was smaller than she’d imagined. Cheap coffee, chipped cups, and people who spoke too loudly. The manager yelled often. The customers never said thank you.

But there was a window.

And sometimes, when she wiped tables after closing, she’d catch her reflection in the glass- tired eyes, soft lips, a faint scar under her chin. She’d trace it absently and whisper to herself,

“You made it through today.”

That was enough.

---

One night, as she returned home, rain began to fall. Her shoes splashed in puddles, streetlights flickered weakly. Through the cracked window of her small house, she could already see the orange glow of a cigarette.

Richard sat slumped in his chair, a half-empty bottle beside him, smoke curling toward the ceiling. Her adoptive mother stood near the sink, staring into nothing.

“You’re late,” Richard muttered, not looking at her.

“I worked overtime,” she said quietly, setting her bag down.

No answer. Just the sound of a lighter clicking again, flame catching, smoke rising.

She turned away, staring at the small clock on the wall. Midnight.

Her name was Nancy Smith, but she never felt like it belonged to her.

She always wondered what her real surname was..as she took hers from the Smiths who adopted her.

As the clock ticked, Richard’s cigarette burned to its end.

The smoke filled the room, sharp and heavy.

Nancy sat by the window, chin on her knees, watching the rain trace lines on the glass. Her eyes were tired but calm, almost numb. Somewhere in her heart, that little girl still called out for the man with the tattooed hand.

And in another part of the city, a man with a fading skull tattoo on his wrist sat in an office, staring at an old photograph- one of a smiling little girl in his arms.

Sometimes, love doesn’t die. It just forgets the way home.