Ellen in Pieces Read online

“I’ll catch up,” he said, and she glided away, right past Ellen, without giving her or her wares so much as a glance.

  Three of Ellen’s filigreed pots were displayed on their own small wooden boxes. She hadn’t noticed him yet. Her face was turned away, as though to avoid the stream of shoppers, while on the other side of the black fabric partition a grinning woman in a Santa hat offered candy canes to anyone who stopped to smell her soap. Ellen’s booth was undecorated, just her and the pots, a black velvet cloth, and the pedestal boxes. A crease ran from the side of her nose to the corner of her mouth, previously unnoticed by Matt. It made her look angry. Or older. Or as old as she really was.

  Matt came over and stood in front of her and she raised her eyes to him. The blankness in them was so wounding! Remember yesterday? It was just yesterday that I pounded my love into you. Then something happened on her face. The context he didn’t belong in—the vaulted ceiling, the whole teeming fair beneath it, the ear-worming carols, and the thousand things beaded, turned, spun, and stitched—it all began to fall away, crumbling to bits around him, inconsequential, irrelevant.

  EVER since Matt and Nicole got together four years ago, they’d spent Christmas with her parents. When they were at the U of A, no one mentioned this arrangement; holidays didn’t matter so much when you could see your family whenever. But now that Matt and Nicole lived a plane ride away in Vancouver, there were tensions. On the phone his sister Patty had said, “Why do they always get Christmas? Why can’t they take Boxing Day for a change?”

  “Nicole’s an only child,” Matt said. “Mom and Dad have you and Carl. And now the baby too. And I was just out there. Remember?” He’d come home for a week in September to see his newborn nephew, his sort-of namesake, Cody Matthias.

  And so on the twenty-sixth, after French-press coffee and homemade scones at Nicole’s parents’ place, they headed out to the Grove. It was an ugly Kal Tire–Tim Hortons kind of drive with only blowing snow to soften the fact of it. Already, after just five months on the coast, Matt was questioning a whole life spent in a place like Spruce Grove, in a house like the one he pulled up at, its double garage doors the focal point, implying the most important thing in Spruce Grove was that you owned two cars.

  “Well,” Matt said. “I guess it’s Christmas cake again.”

  Last year Nicole had choked on the fossilized Christmas cake. She’d excused herself from the table to go dig the package out of the garbage. Later, vindicated, she’d shown the best-before date to Matt.

  “It might be the same cake as last year,” he said now, and Nicole laughed. Easy to joke about his family out in the car, but the second he walked through that door the sluggish pledge he carried in his veins would start to flow.

  The sheers parted in the window and a bloated face looked out. Patty. She made an obscure gesture with her hand, not welcoming at all, more like a push-off. Typical Patty: love ya, get lost. Then Carl, Matt’s brother-in-law, reared up hugely in the window with a more definite sign. He was telling them to go around the back.

  “What’s going on?” Nicole asked.

  They left everything in the car and went around the side of the house, the minus-30-something outside air a psychic shock. Carl met them at the back door, clasped Matt’s hand bro-style. Matt clasped back. He liked being related to this body type. Normally if a hulk like Carl came toward Matt? He crossed the street.

  “Don’t make a sound,” Carl told them. “Don’t say a word.”

  They slipped off their boots and crept to the living room still wearing their coats. Patty was stationed on the couch nursing the baby, which had tripled in size since September, just as Patty had tripled with her pregnancy. All you could see was the infant’s veloured back and bald spot as he reclined on the C-shaped pillow around Patty’s stomach. She wiggled her fingers at Matt. His dad, Alden, was there too, having given up his recliner for Nicole, squeezing Matt’s shoulder as he limped past, coming back a minute later with a can of beer to shove in his hand.

  It was eleven o’clock in the morning. All the presents under the tree were unopened.

  “Alden?” Matt’s mother, Anne, called from upstairs. “Where are you?”

  Patty buckled over, trying not to laugh. The baby was nearly squashed.

  “Down here!” his dad called. “We’re waiting for Matty.”

  “Is he here?”

  “Not yet.”

  First her socked feet appeared, one finding its place on the stair before the other moved down to join it. In silence they watched her slow, banister-clutching descent. It seemed cruel to Matt and he had to look away. When she finally reached the bottom and started into the room, she walked almost normally except for her arms, which she bent at the elbows as if carrying an invisible tray.

  She stopped. “Matthias?”

  “See!” Patty shrieked at the same time Carl and Alden let out a roar. “See! She always knows!”

  “Should I change my deodorant?” Matt asked, going over to his mother, who turned to him for a hug. In September she could still see him. Couldn’t she? He waved the unopened beer in her face, but she didn’t react.

  “Matty’s here,” she whispered in his ear, as though he were someone else.

  He pulled away. “Mom. I should get the bags.”

  Coatless, he sprinted out the door to the car, the cold pummel-ling him all the way.

  When he burst back inside, Carl called, “I hope those are the presents. I want my presents.”

  “You should have gone ahead without us,” Nicole said.

  “We didn’t want to,” Patty said in a long-suffering tone. She lifted the baby to her shoulder, drummed his back. He sounded hollow.

  “Can I see him?” Nicole asked, just as Alden appeared carrying a mug with a spoon sticking out. “Here’s your tea, dear.”

  Anne was right behind him. “Did you ask her what she takes in it?”

  “What do you take in it, dear?”

  “Milk,” Nicole said.

  “No sugar?” Anne asked Alden.

  “Just milk,” Nicole said.

  “Alden, take it back and put some milk in.”

  “I’m on it, Mother. I’m on it.”

  Carl, on his hands and knees under the tree, began passing presents around. “Patty. Patty. The Hickey Machine.”

  “Oh, he’s so cute,” said Nicole, taking a seat next to Patty on the couch. “Hi, Cody. Hi. Let me know when I can hold him.”

  “He feeds, like, all the time.”

  There was a PhD thesis to be written on what came out of his sister’s mouth, Matt thought as he settled beside Nicole. Differentiating the layers of grievance—Boxing Day, the countless tactless things Nicole had unwittingly blurted over the years—then sorting the grievances from the sharp way Patty expressed her love.

  Carl read a tag and tossed a present. “Matty. Feels like a mouse pad.”

  “Okay, here she comes,” Alden announced, limping in with the tea.

  “Did you take out the bag?” asked Anne, who still hovered between the living room and the dining room, turned slightly away from everyone, looking old and odd.

  Alden turned and limped back out.

  As soon as Nicole got her tea the way she liked it, they started on the presents, everyone turning first to Matt, who opened the mouse pad. It was custom printed with a picture of his nephew.

  “I’ll keep it in my wallet. There’s plenty of room. Not like there’s any money in it.” He took the wallet from his back pocket and feigned jamming the mouse pad in.

  “He has a finger pad on his computer,” Nicole explained.

  “Oh, sorry,” Patty said.

  Because of Matt’s lack of funds, Alden, Patty, Carl, and the baby all received a can of Kokanee. “B.C. beer!” Alden said. “That’ll make for a change.”

  Carl and Patty seemed touched that the baby had got his first beer at three months. “Hey, Hickey Machine!” Patty said, jiggling the can over his head while he nursed. “Look what your uncle gave you!�
� She said the outrageously overpriced booties that Nicole had bought at the craft fair were “Nice.”

  “I hope you didn’t get beer, dear,” Alden told Nicole, who laughed and shook her head.

  “Where’s the other two beer then?” Carl said. “Anne, did you get two beer from Matty? No fair.”

  “It’s smaller than beer,” Anne said, lifting the box into her lap.

  As well as the mouse pad, Matt got a Walmart sweater and Oilers memorabilia, Nicole a Walmart sweater and bath beads. She pulled the pink atrocity over her head, seemingly oblivious to the fact that it had been purchased for her by his sister out of sheer hostility, not bad taste. Or not only bad taste. Her static-charged hair rose like feelers in the dry air.

  “Acrylic is so warm,” she said.

  “What does it look like?” his mother asked.

  “It looks okay,” Patty said. “What did Matt get you, Nicole?”

  Nicole said, “A water bottle.”

  “What!” Carl roared. “We all got beer!”

  “It’s a hydration system,” Matt said. “I’ll show you.” He went to the door where their bags still were and brought it back, a red nylon pouch with a long clear tube dangling down.

  “What does it look like?” Matt’s mother asked.

  “A douche bag,” Patty said.

  “I was going to say whoopee cushion,” Alden said.

  “Pass it here,” said Carl. “I’ll sit on it.”

  “Don’t,” Patty told him. “You’ll pop it. Then she won’t be able to drink her water.”

  “Okay, okay,” said Matt, seeing Nicole’s face pinkening to match the sweater. He took it and shoved it down into Nicole’s overnight bag again. “It’s for hiking. We’re hiking a lot out there.”

  Alden said, “You’re up, Mother. Go ahead.”

  Anne turned the present in her lap, feeling for the folds in the paper. Matt had used too much tape.

  “I’ll do it, Mom.”

  He leapt up but Patty waved him back. What was worse, fumbling with something in front of everyone or being denied the chance to? Anne finally tore the paper off. Now she was feeling the box, but would never get inside it.

  “Here, Mom,” he said, taking her hands in his. He righted the box, positioned her thumb in the notch on the lid. “It slides open.”

  “I see,” said his mother, even though she didn’t.

  She lifted the tiny pot out of the straw it was packed in and held it an inch from her eyes. For some reason this made her seem stupid. “What’s it for?” she asked.

  Not—what is it? What’s it for?

  This was the kind of people they were. His father, who suffered chronic back pain, kept on running his carpet-cleaning business anyway. Until just a few years ago, when her eyesight got too bad, Anne used to go on rounds with him; now she booked their dwindling appointments. (Laminate had cut their business in half.) Carl was a manager at Canadian Tire. Patty had cashiered at Safeway since she was sixteen. In Matt’s family, you worked and the things you bought with your hard-earned money had a purpose, like beer. No one was the least offended to receive beer for Christmas, but everyone stared at the pot Anne was turning in her hands and their unease was palpable.

  A pot too small to put anything in. A pot full of holes. She couldn’t even see it! Everything they feared for him had come true. He’d given up a job offer to go live in a city so soft it didn’t even snow, where he had no other job lined up and still hadn’t found one despite his unpaid-for university degree. He’d followed Nicole without marrying her, Nicole who hogged him every Christmas and was getting a PhD in a subject they couldn’t remember or understand. All of it, embodied in this inexplicable gift.

  And that was only the half of it. They didn’t even know that Matt was sleeping with the woman who’d made the pot.

  BACK in mid-October, after Nicole left town, Matt met Ellen at the coffee place on the corner. A woman in loose clothes, older than him; women his age dressed in yoga bondage.

  The way she stood in the line—claiming her full allotment of space, confident she deserved it—attracted Matt, who every second second-guessed himself. He should have been earning 2.3 million Korean won a month plus the completion bonus at the end of two years, living in free housing supplied by the hakwon. He should have been eating kimchi. Nicole had agreed he should go and clear up his debt. And if she wasn’t accepted in any of the PhD programs she’d applied to, she would come to Korea too. You didn’t need the TESL certificate, just earned more if you had one.

  But she was accepted, and it turned out that she couldn’t bear to part from him, and he her, in truth. Normally, they didn’t do the dirty enough to satisfy Matt, not by a long shot. Anticipating their parting, they did it all the time, and Matt thought, okay, this is worth 2.3 million won. He cancelled his contract.

  Two months later Nicole went up north, leaving Matt in Vancouver following strange women around. Why not? He’d followed Nicole here. He would pick a woman at random and tail her until he was in danger of being noticed, picturing himself and her in an alternative life. In bed, yes, but other things too. Carrying her shopping basket, lifting the fallen chain back on her bike. It seemed conceivable then, that he could be with anyone, and if he could—be with anyone—he could be anyone.

  That October day the game had ended almost immediately. Ellen lived a block from the café in an old triplex of artist studios. He followed Ellen home like a lost dog and when he got there, what was in the window? A pot.

  And a different game began.

  AFTER present opening, the lacuna of waiting for dinner, the life sentence of every Christmas afternoon. Matt tried not to watch his sister nursing the baby, but there she sat, letting it all hang out. Ellen had large dark aureolae while Nicole’s were pale pink, almost flesh-toned. Patty’s were somewhere in between, nipples elongated from the sucking. When Ellen lay on her back, her breasts tumbled into her armpits. When she knelt with her elbows on the bed, her nipples brushed the sheet. He’d never, of course, get Nicole in that position. She often found intercourse painful. And Ellen’s bush was so extravagant; he’d been startled at first.

  Carl was playing Wii with the sound off. He nudged Matt with his foot. “That’s your sister, buddy.”

  Matt blushed, but Patty said, “I don’t care. I’m just a dairy producer now. Hey, who wants to hold the Hickey Machine while I pee?”

  “Me,” Nicole said.

  She had disappeared upstairs right after the presents were opened. Now she’d returned with a book under her arm. She must have slipped away to read, except her eyes looked puffy and her brief glance in Matt’s direction seemed freighted with reproach. He couldn’t think what he’d done.

  Patty made like she hadn’t heard Nicole’s offer, or maybe she hadn’t. She heaved herself off the couch and deposited the baby into Matt’s unready arms. With wide, surprised eyes, the baby regarded him.

  “Hi,” Matt said.

  Cody Matthias pitched forward in a swoon and proceeded to nuzzle Matt’s neck. “Help,” he said to Nicole.

  “He sucks,” Carl said. “Sucks, poops, cries. It’s quite the life.”

  Nicole seemed happy to take the baby, but she also frowned at Matt during the transfer. Because Patty hadn’t given her the baby in the first place? Matt shrugged and got up.

  In the kitchen his mother was patting down the uncooked turkey. “There’s Froot Loops,” she said the second he stepped in the room.

  Shaking his head, Matt poured himself a bowl, then watched as Anne performed a cavity search on the bird.

  “What is that?” he asked.

  She had extracted something penile and flayed. The neck, she claimed.

  “How did it get up its arse?”

  On the phone, Alden was saying, “Not possible. Tomorrow would work, first thing. In the meantime, salt. Sifto or what-have-you.”

  He was wearing Anne’s apron, Matt noticed. He’d never seen his father in an apron before.

  “What nex
t, Mother?” he asked when he hung up.

  “I can help,” Matt said.

  Then Patty came in cupping both breasts.

  “And what is that about?” Matt asked her.

  “I’m trying to figure out which one is fuller.”

  “Where’s the bread?” Anne asked.

  “Right in front of you, Mom.” Patty snatched up the Wonder Bread and bopped Anne on the head with it.

  “Get out of here, you two,” Anne snapped. “You’re just in the way.”

  Matt dropped his dirty bowl in the sink and followed Patty out. “That’s a bit harsh,” he said. “Hitting Mom.”

  Patty swung around. “Matt, she wants you to treat her the same.”

  “Did she say that?”

  “She said it to Dad. She can take a joke. She just can’t see.”

  “Not at all?” Matt asked, pained, but Patty was already waddling away. So fat! Was she going to stay like that? he wondered.

  In the living room the Hickey Machine was grousing, Nicole pacing with him, trying to forestall full-blown wails. Every time she passed in front of the TV, Carl leaned sideways in his chair so he wouldn’t total his Ferrari. Patty plopped down on the couch, horseshoed herself with the nursing pillow, held out her arms for the baby. The way she whipped out the breast and plugged it in made Matt grimace. Carl saw and guffawed.

  Nicole sat beside Patty again and, ignoring her book on the coffee table, picked up the Cosmopolitan beside it. She indulged in these kinds of magazines herself, mostly when she was depressed. She would curl up in bed with People and a carton of Häagen-Dazs.

  “‘Your Sexual Horoscope for 2009!’” Matt read off the cover. “Hmm. I wonder what’s in store for Gemini.”

  Nicole ignored him. So. Definitely mad. To Patty, she said, “This is great. I don’t have time to read trash anymore.”

  Patty’s thought-balloon broke off and hovered above her. Apparently, only Matt could see it: Trash? She asked, “How come you don’t have time?”

  “A PhD is so gruelling. I had no idea.”

  Patty’s thought-balloon: Ha! Try having a baby!

  And it seemed to Matt, not for the first time, that Nicole couldn’t possibly be smart enough for a PhD.