Deb L. is a 32-year-old woman. She started smoking cigarettes at age 15. 
This photograph was made on April 8, 2006. Deb is smoking her last cigarette. At least that is her hope.
Deb hides her smoking from her 3-year-old son, David. Deb doesn’t want David to see her smoke and then grow up to be a smoker.
But it is more than just the health consequences of smoking that bothers Deb. “I would be a better parent if I didn’t smoke… When I smoke, I am not all there for David. 
Sometimes I think, you are a great parent, but you are smoking.”
Deb stopped smoking once before, when she was pregnant with David. This was the only time she stopped previously. “If there wasn’t
a child involved, I would still smoke.”
Her ambivalence about smoking is considerable, even on this day of quitting.
“David can sense that I smoke.”
At home, Deb sneaks cigarettes. She thinks smoking is how she manages her emotions.
In a desperate attempt to stop and to regain control, she takes cigarettes to the kitchen sink and drowns them.
“If I broke them, I only would put them back together and smoke them… By drowning them, the sink gives me power over the cigarettes.”
With David’s drawings in the background, Deb has had her last cigarette.
The angst of not smoking is palpable.