December 10, 2019:
She was fired for drinking wine on the job. She laughs about it in public, for instance when she explains it to our waitress friend at our favorite restaurant. But the event resonates in very many directions.
That she can't control her addiction. That without the income she'll lose her room, while her options are basically none. She can sleep on her girlfriend's couch. Or borrow my guest room. Or move in to the shelter. Without a car these possibilities are each unrealistic.
Characteristically her greatest fear is not so much that she'll be homeless as that she'll become violent as she descends. She lives in horror she'll turn into my homicidal blacked-out ex, the one who broke my shin and detached my retinas and damaged my kidney. She loathes that person but sees herself sinking, for instance when she watches herself, enraged but objective, throw her iPhone into the wall.