Gately on Boston AA — "Gately was careful to always leave…"
Gately was careful to always leave her enough for a wake-up swallow. But this gesture of leaving some, Gately’s now realized, wasn’t just filial kindness on his part: if she didn’t have the wake-up swallow she wouldn’t get off the red couch all day, and then there would be no new bottle that night.
Context
Sober remembering isn't just retrieval, it's re-reading: the memory of the wake-up swallow was always available, but only now does its meaning invert, from a boy's kindness to supply-maintenance for the bottle he was secretly draining. The past doesn't change; the rememberer does.