The Drowning Woman

Content Warning: This section discusses suicide and suicidal ideation, depression and panic attacks, intimate partner violence and abuse, murder, and death.

Lee Gulliver attempts to sleep in the driver’s seat of her car. She thinks about her previous perspective on homelessness and how it has changed since she resorted to living in her car. Two men whom Lee identifies as “addicts” appear on either side of her car. One breaks her passenger side window. He grabs her backpack, which contains clothes and toiletries. She’s relieved that she can replace these things. As she starts the car, the man grabs her purse, which contains her phone and identifying documents. She tries to swipe his arm with her knife, but the attacker runs alongside as she drives, eventually pulling the purse from the car.

Lee goes to a local pool to take a shower because “the staff will look the other way if it’s not too busy, if [she is] quick and quiet” (8). She thinks about the bridges she burned in New York and meeting Damon. Lee’s dream had been to start a restaurant, the Aviary. While she knew that Damon was a gangster, she accepted his offer to invest in her restaurant.