Ellen in Pieces by Caroline Adderson Page A

among the feather-haired and Lycraed North Vancouver natives, all of whom chattedin tight circles around the playground equipment, snubbing her. It was 1983. Mimi teetered then fell on all fours in the sandbox. Ellen marvelled at how she simply thrust her diapered bottom in the air and boosted herself up. “How do you do that?” she asked, for she, Ellen, was in mid-collapse and would never, ever right herself.
    Every few nights she called Larry in California and asked him to please, please, just come back for the birth. He kept telling her, “Amy wouldn’t like it.”
    Amy was the slutty L.A. actress who had stolen Larry from her.
    At her core Ellen was resilient and practical—no crisis could override that—so one day she took the bus down to the Health Unit and signed up for pre-natal classes. Tuesday evenings for four weeks, babysitting provided.
    In the second class they practised breathing exercises on mats. Ellen had to pair up with the instructor, which caused the pity level in the room to soar. Afterward a ringlettey woman, who was so petite and muscular her pregnancy barely showed, intercepted Ellen and asked if she wanted to go for coffee sometime. That was Georgia.
    “Oh, thank you!” Ellen gasped.
    When they met up later in the week, Georgia brought along Celine, the glamorous one who all through the class ostentatiously stroked her belly like she was accompanying them on the harp. She was much taller, massively pregnant, but only from the front and side. From the back, you couldn’t tell. (Ellen just looked fat under all her loose hippy garments, so no one offered her a seat on the bus.) By chance Georgia had run into Celine at the Park Royal Mall, recognized her from the class, and invited her along. None of them really knew each other.
    Georgia, who seemed tactful and shy, might never have asked, but Celine did, the second their coffee mugs were set in front ofthem. There was a boldness to Celine, a right-to-knowness that, combined with her overall perfection—clothes, hair, skin—would have smacked of bourgeois entitlement on Cordova Island.
    “So?” Celine asked Ellen. “Are you doing this on your own?”
    Ellen fiddled with her hair, still long then, more chewed-on rope than braid. Here in the city, her hair added to her pathos, but she hadn’t realized it yet. “Apparently,” she said.
    “What does that mean?”
    The interrogation obviously pained Georgia. She stared into her mug, then shot Ellen a lifeline kind of look. Ellen ignored it. Bobbing far out beyond her pride, she wanted, needed, Celine’s sympathy more.
    “I
was
married. Until about a month ago.”
    “That’s brave,” Celine said, taking in Mimi too, squeezed onto what little remained of Ellen’s lap, sucking on the crayons the waitress had brought. “I’m not sure I’d leave Richard in my condition. Not that I have reason to.”
    “It wasn’t my idea,” Ellen said.
    “He left
you
?” Celine said, and both women, Georgia too, instinctively and together, reached for Ellen. “What a
bastard!
”
    Ellen wished Larry could hear how she limped to his defence. “He had his reasons, I guess.” Then, without volunteering the fact of her own slip-up, she started weeping.
    Georgia squeezed her hand; Celine hugged Ellen hard. This was the sisterhood they had celebrated in the Cordova Island Community Hall once a month when the Women’s Empowerment Group met, but which had proved to be a lie. Who would have thought she’d find it here, in a yuppie café on Lonsdale Avenue?
    It was Celine who answered Ellen’s call when her labour started, who took Mimi to Georgia’s and coached Ellen all day,rubbing the small of her back, timing contractions, reading out from her notebook the pertinent passages they had covered in class. Who drove Ellen to the hospital six hours later and remained steadfastly with her in the delivery room while Ellen, squatting, screamed out her agony, “I hate your fucking guts, Larry Silver! I hate