The New Yorker: "Temporary" by Marisa Silver

Everything is temporary. Vivian is living with Shelly in a temporary space (it's not really housing at all) and they're only temporarily friends. Vivian temporarily hooks up with Shelly's temporary boyfriend. Vivian is a temp working in an adoption agency, where she was hired because she herself was adopted (having temporarily belonged to other parents, I suppose). And her adoptive mother gets very ill but then recovers. Temporarily. And then she dies, having, temporarily, taken up smoking be...