John the Drunk is a Thief
After Tess's mother died, she lost herself for a while. She found this confusing because they did not like each other very much, and Tess had considered herself estranged for almost a decade. Nevertheless, upon becoming an orphan, her drinking consumed her. She slept fitfully and woke fretfully, heart rate high and hands shaky. She stopped showering and ignored phone calls. Her writing was at first slow and uninspired, then nonexistent. She and her editor made a mutual decision: Tess would take a leave of absence from the magazine, indeterminately long, and "get her shit together."