Joelle's morning visit: brownies, the meeting retold, the photo album

timeline_event

texture · prob. 18 Nov YDAU

When: prob. Wed 18 Nov YDAU (2009), A.M. (refined from catalog "? Nov" per a dating adjudication in this archive: "last night's St. Columbkill's" = Tue 17 Nov)
What: The real Joelle (lavender-selvaged veil, brocaded hulpil) swabs waking Gately's forehead, brings Morris H.'s cream-cheese brownies, says "And Lo" to amuse him, sits on the empty second bed and recreates last night's meeting for the mute Gately; she shows him her Kentucky photo album — her "own personal Daddy" at the porch rail, the unnamed pointer "that got hit by the UPS truck," Mr. Man the bull, Chet the mule, fume-damaged Uncle Lum Riney. Gately's answering 13th-Step marriage/Liebestod fantasies (the "('M.P.')" projection, the honeymoon-unveiling dread) end in his own disgusted self-audit. NOTE as printed tension: Gately reminds himself she is "only about three weeks clean" (p. 857) — approximate as written vs. the 8-Nov Ennet entry / 7-8 Nov OD (n.134 ruling).