the nose he asked her to leave bent
once hit his wife so hard in the blackout that made him Come In he broke her nose and bent it over flat against her face, which he asked her never to have repaired, as a daily visual reminder of the depths drink sunk him to
Context
A recovery-story carried in a visiting Flagger's face: the blackout blow that broke his wife's nose was the bottom that made him Come In, and he asked her to leave it bent flat as a permanent visual reminder of how far the drink had sunk him. It is the program's amends-and-remembrance logic at its rawest and most flawed — restitution he demands of her body, penance kept on someone else's face — the disease's wreckage worn as a memento, until Al-Anon eventually gets her the nose and the exit both.