Joelle visits Gately: Abiding — "And yet it wasn’t til that…"
And yet it wasn’t til that poor new pipe-fellow from home pointed at me and hauled me up there and I said it that I realized,’ Joelle said. ‘I don’t have to do it that way. I get to choose how to do it, and they’ll help me stick to the choice. I don’t think I’d realized before that I could—I can really do this. I can do this for one endless day. I can. Don.
Context
Joelle's breakthrough, said straight at him — and the first time she calls him by name. (Only the outermost dialogue marks are dropped; the internal "’ Joelle said. ‘" is the raw's own.) "One endless day" fuses her Knievel discovery with his inter-beat Now: the same phrase that described withdrawal's eternity now names the livable unit of a sober life. Recovery strategy as, directly, a choice about how to experience time.