Gately on Boston AA — "At first Gately just couldn’t go…"
At first Gately just couldn’t go out to the Long-Term place, couldn’t see her out there. Couldn’t deal. Then after some time passed he couldn’t go because he couldn’t face her and try and explain why he hadn’t come before now. Ten-plus years have gone like that. Gately hadn’t probably consciously thought of her once for three years, before getting straight.
Context
The forgetting side of the ledger, quantified: ten-plus years of not visiting, compounding on itself, and then the flat clinical datum — three years in which the yellow dying mother never once crossed the using mind. Active addiction as an engine for not-thinking-of; it's "before getting straight" that makes it a memory passage, since sobriety reopened the account.