Read Online Ellen in Pieces by Caroline Adderson - Free Book Online Page B

anything to do with you.”
    “I understand and respect that. And let me say one more timethat I’m sorry. I said it then. I wrote you fifty letters. I’m saying it now. I’m sorry. But the fact is, Dad’s here. If we could cooperate on this? That would be big of you. Huge. I’ll never ask for anything else.”
    “You took everything already,” Moira said.
    “Did I? I mean, Moira, come on. Are you still married to Charles? Dad says you are. Am I married to Larry? No. I’m married to nobody.”
    Ellen took off her glasses and squeezed the bridge of her nose. She hoped she didn’t sound pathetic or manipulative. She was startled by how matter-of-factly she had said it.
I’m married to nobody.
She flinched, but she didn’t howl.
    A long pause followed. Ellen expected Moira to hang up, but she didn’t. She let Ellen sit alone with her pain. Eventually it passed, like a contraction.
    “How’s Mimi?” she finally asked.
    “Good.”
    “I heard she got into drugs.”
    Ellen sighed. “She’s fine now. She’s in Toronto. She’s a dancer. Yolanda has a five-year-old. There’s another on the way.”
    “Jenny had a baby too! Finally!”
    Ellen looked at her watch. Four minutes and Moira was still on the line.
    A whole team combined forces to get Jack McGinty back to normal—psychiatrist, psychiatric resident, social worker, O.T., not to mention the cheerful army of nurses in their coloured Crocs, dispensing laxatives. And Ellen McGinty, who came twice a week. With this gap of days between visits, his improvement showed; thejaw movements grew less ferocious, his hands a little steadier. These were withdrawal symptoms, Dr. Tung (older, Chinese, moderately cute, she noted for when Georgia asked) explained.
Nortriptyline, Felodipine, Quetiapine, Loxapine.
Ellen knew she should try to understand the pharmacology, but after this ordeal, she wasn’t going to suggest taking him off anything.
    Soon Jack was taking his meals in the dining room. One afternoon she found him there with three crones, the women slouched at one end of the long table, walkers and canes stationed nearby, Jack at the other suddenly seeming the junior to everyone, flush-faced and alert, a box of tissues within reach. He brightened when he saw Ellen and she reciprocated.
    “You’ve got mail.” She waved it.
    It was a knife-free ward so she used the handle of a plastic spoon to slit the envelopes. The first contained a cheque.
    “It’s a reimbursement from my drug plan,” he said.
    “You’re rich,” Ellen said.
    “Put it in the TD account.”
    Ellen tucked the cheque back in the envelope and wrote
TD
on it. Jack blew his nose.
    “Do you have a cold?” she asked.
    “I’m fine.” He handed her the tissue.
    “I should deposit this too?”
    “Moira called. Tell her not to call here anymore. It’s long distance. I’m fine. Tell her not to come.”
    “She’s coming here?” Ellen said, astonished.
    “I don’t want her to. I’m fine.”
    “She told me Charles had nothing to do with switching your meds. She says it was her. She thought it was time someone updated them.”
    “It was
Charles!
”
    Ellen leaned away from her father’s vehemence. Just then a silver-haired man with a showy belt buckle breezed through to announce gold was up. The three crones did not react.
    “Thinks he’s a big investor,” Jack whispered. “Hogs the TV. Always checking his stocks.” He passed her the cable bill. “Pay that.”
    “Please?” Ellen hinted.
    How annoying Jack was today, she thought as she nosed the car out of the hospital parking lot into rush-hour traffic. Do this, do that. Empty the dishwasher. Clean your room. His old, order-barking self. What was she, his secretary? And why did he keep blaming Charles? Poor Charles.
    It got dark so early now. Clouds, shiftless, loitered over the city, accumulating moisture, then sidled off to drop their load on the North Shore. After she sold the house she was going to move into a mirrored