Ellen in Pieces Read online

  Had been.

  “Thank you,” Mrs. Lottman says with dignity. She puts her hand over Matt’s. “Can we go now?”

  First there is the ceremony to get through for both Matt and Mrs. Lottman, whose fates intertwined the day of the fire when they had remained separate for all the months they’d been across-the-hall neighbours. The last day Matt saw Ellen. Because when he did call Ellen two days later, like she asked? Over and over? Ellen didn’t pick up. He never spoke to her again.

  And all this time he’s been furious. Hurt. In a serious, fucking funk over how Ellen had wrung out his heart. Ellen, who, in hindsight, was completely unsuitable. Too far ahead of him in life.

  Matt got on with it, his life. Got on really well, actually, both financially and in the way Korean women are nuts for every weiguk-in.

  The fire chief penetrates the scrum of Lottmans and suggests they start. Most of the plastic chairs get sat on, even by a few people unrelated to the Lottmans. They aren’t dressed up. People, Matt supposes, who came from across the street for the free coffee and Chips Ahoy! laid out on a table at the back.

  Speeches: a city councillor, the fire chief. Then Matt is called to the front of the room to receive his plaque. His stomach twists. What would they say if they knew he was the one who started the fire?

  Close by, a seismic rumble sounds, deep enough to cause the floor to shake. It’s one of the trucks. A couple of the firefighters leave the room and Matt turns to face his mostly adoring Lottman audience.

  It’s obvious what they would say. So you messed up? Who cares? It’s not as important as what you do to set things right. And here he is, doing just that.

  He’ll never see these people again. Before today, he didn’t know most of them existed. Not even Mrs. Lottman has earned more than a walk-through in his memory. Still, every person who comes into your life gives you a piece of themselves. And vice versa. Well, here’s proof of that.

  What did Ellen give him? What gifts has he denied receiving since she closed her door to him that night? Can he even count them? Her kindness and her time. Her cool fingers at his nape, tucking in his tag. Food, advice, languid, secret afternoons. What did he offer Ellen in return? He looks around the room still hoping she’ll be here. Hoping that’s her in the chair close to the window, backlit, an aura around her. Her hand lifts discreetly, just a jiggle to say, here I am.

  An empty chair.

  When the plaque is in Matt’s grasp, when the little tiara girl dashes up to present him with a Bristol board card she made—it’s almost as big as her and all the Lottmans have signed it—when she says, loudly, her obviously rehearsed sentence, “You’re my hero,” and hugs him around his waist, everyone claps, even Mrs. Lottman with a weary expression on her face. Some of his grogginess lifts and he feels something like a reprieve. And more.

  He actually feels the thing they’ve asked him to come here to feel.

  Because of those times he left Ellen in her loft—sated with their lovemaking and calling down to him, “Thank you! Thank you for being born!”—and paraded his aliveness down the hill, the view opening up to him. If it was evening, he saw the city’s illumined parts—the lights of West Vancouver concentrating near the shore, gold and amber in the bay, an aquatic aurora borealis, the freighters waiting at anchor with their decks lit up. He couldn’t stop smiling and everyone smiled back. It spread around in his peacocking wake, from person to person. Behold the mighty pleasure-giver, the bold lover, the hero of the loft. A slam-dunk at the bus shelter; he hung onto the roof, swung to and fro, startling everyone waiting for the bus.

  Thank you, thank you.

  When the Lottmans find out he’s in a hotel, that he’s alone, they’re incensed. He must come with Cindy and Rod at least for supper.

  “I’m not alone, actually.” He checks his pocket. A scrunch of paper.

  The curious thing is, Mimi doesn’t seem the dark person Ellen talked about. Strange and intense, yes. Even a bit wacky, like Ellen. Was Ellen jealous?

  Matt glances across the room, feels the plastic ache of two dozen empty chairs.

  Amazing that he and Mimi ran into each other. (Why do you think we did?)

  “I can’t,” Matt tells them. “I’m sorry. I’m meeting someone. We’re going to a play.”

  Acknowledgments

  Shaena Lambert

  Patrick Crean Jackie Kaiser Franny Brafman

  Chris Casuccio Ingrid MacDonald Dan Wells

  John Metcalf Richmond Public Library

  Douglas Glover Kathy Hunt Jacquie Harrison

  Dr. Jane Donaldson Dr. Kong Khoo

  Kim Jernigan Lynn Coady

  Curtis Gillespie Bruce Sweeney

  Patrick Sweeney

  I give you stars.

  About the Author

  CAROLINE ADDERSON is the author of three previous novels, A History of Forgetting, Sitting Practice, and The Sky Is Falling, two collections of short stories, Bad Imaginings and Pleased to Meet You, as well as books for young readers. Her work has been nominated for the Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award, the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, two Commonwealth Writers’ Prizes, the Scotiabank Giller Prize (longlist), the Governor General’s Literary Award, and the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize. The winner of two Ethel Wilson Fiction Prizes and three CBC Literary Prizes, Caroline was also the recipient of the 2006 Marian Engel Award for mid-career achievement. She lives in Vancouver.

  Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.

  Accolades for Caroline Adderson

  “Ellen-Celine, Celine-Ellen”

  WINNER: Gold Medal for Fiction, National Magazine Awards

  “I Feel Lousy”

  WINNER: Gold Medal for Fiction, Alberta Magazine Showcase Awards

  “Erection Man”

  LONGLISTED: Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award

  Advance Acclaim for Ellen in Pieces

  “Just when you think Caroline Adderson has crafted the perfect comic set piece, she breaks your heart with a moment of pure human pathos. Rarely has a literary character been brought to life with such funny and passionate exuberance.”

  –LYNN COADY, author of Hellgoing

  “Sexy, searing, and very, very funny. How is middle age funny? I don’t know, but in Caroline Adderson’s world, the big, bawdy joy of life conquers sickness and pain and loss. Fierce and masterful.”

  –ANNABEL LYON, author of The Sweet Girl

  “Ellen in Pieces is a sumptuous book, urgent with created life. It is crowded with characters, sparkling with writerly intelligence, driving forward with relentless verve, and flashed through with Addersonian humour, which has glinted in earlier work but is here unrestrained, unrefined. I loved Ellen in Pieces. It’s the rare sort of book that makes other writers feel there ought to be a law against it.”

  –JOHN METCALF, author of An Aesthetic Underground and Standing Stones

  Credits

  COVER PHOTO: Don Farrall, Getty Images

  COVER DESIGN: Michel Vrana

  Copyright

  Ellen in Pieces

  Copyright © 2014 by Caroline Adderson

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  EPUB Edition July 2014 ISBN 9781443426800

  A Patrick Crean Edition published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

  FIRST EDITION

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotatio
ns embodied in reviews.

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