"Eveline" by James Joyce, what is meant by the phrase " to keep the home together as long as she could "?

As James Joyce's story, "Eveline" opens, the main
character sits at the window where "she was tired."  Here the implication is that
Eveline is a victim of abuse from her drunkard father.  In her internal monologue, she
reflects that "now she had nobody to protect her" since her brother Ernest is dead and
Harry is always gone "somewhere in the country."

Leaning at
the window, Eveline refelcts upon her life, a hard life, but in contemplating her
departure, she perceives her life as not "wholly undesirable."  On her lap are two
letters, one to her father, and one to Harry.  With the smell of cretonne from the
curtains, and the street organ playing, Eveline is reminded of her dead mother, who made
her promise to care for her father and "keep the home "together," which means to take
care of the father and children as if she were the mother, to replace the dying
mother.

At the station, Eveline is suddenly gripped by a
psychological paralysis that makes it impossible for her to move.  Eveline cannot assert
herself in psychological freedom and, so she surrenders to  the life she knows in order
to keep the home together.