The words, the song, it’s a lullaby. Like Mom came from wherever she is and somehow she’s sitting in this booth in Zaftigs and she’s holding me in her arms and she’s saying: I see you.

When the song ends, I open my eyes. Jo is a blur, a teary mess of wavy auburn hair and leather jacket and thick eyeliner. She reaches across the table and takes out the earbuds. Hands me a napkin.

“Every time you want to use, Hannah, you count your fingers—give thanks for every single day you’ve stayed clean. All right?”

I nod. It means: Do anything but use. Literally count my fingers if I have to.

“Day ten. You’re a fucking badass.”

I smile. “I don’t feel like such a badass.”

Jo slathers a bagel chip in cream cheese. “Remember: It’s progress, not perfection. You fuck up, you try better next time. Like you are now. On my last day ten—girl, I had a lot of day tens—but my last one was six years ago. I’m twenty-five now. Ancient, right? So I was nineteen on that day. And my sponsor was this old lady named Lulu and she smoked like a chimney and she was a heroin addict from the East Village. She died last year. Sober, just old. Anyway, she gave me this song. And now I give it to you.”

“Do you still need it?”

She wipes bagel chip off her jacket. “Not like I used to. That’s why I’m your sponsor. But I’ll always be in recovery. So will you—even if you’re sober for the rest of your life. And I hope you will be. But being ‘in’ recovery never goes away. It’s not a label, being an addict: It’s just reality. You’ve got an incurable disease that’s in remission. Understand?”

I nod slowly. “I think so.”

“You will always have to stay on your ass,” she says. “People talk about mindfulness. Shit, you don’t need to talk to monks about that—talk to addicts. We are experts on mindfulness.” She takes a swig of coffee. “We work the Steps. Every day. We count our fingers. If we don’t, we’re making snow angels in the Boston Public Garden.”

In other words: Staying clean means we do right by the miracle.

“Someone in rehab said there’s new studies being done—that you don’t have to be stone-cold sober to keep from going overboard,” I say. “There’s, like, medicine that makes you not want to drink, so you can drink, you just don’t want to. Stuff like that. It’s, like, European or something.”