More from the short story Day Lilies by Elaine Neil Orr's
There were two truths about herself that Ellen had told her friend.
She wanted phone calls about awards and she did not want anyone else in her community to be named Ellen.
She had grown up a white girl in West Africa where other girls had names like Tunji and Deli or possibly Esther and Ruth.
Her parents had been missionaries.Now in her American life, if she went to a party and was introduced to another woman named Ellen, she left.
Or even if she wasn’t introduced but just heard that some other woman at the party shared her name, she left.
Her reasons were obscure; she could hardly explain to her husband. Once she had tried:“I came to the U.S. when I was fifteen. I felt so lost.
At night in bed, I would say to myself, ‘I’m Ellen and I grew up in Nigeria.’ I would say it over and over.”“Right,” he had commented.
“Is that all you’re going to say?”
“You felt lost so you said your name to yourself at night. Ok.”
And then he had turned on the television, signaling to his wife that she was being self-absorbed.....
****
Ellen grieved over years of tedious arguments with Martin when now she could see that neither of them had been right or wrong.
They had only been so different in their habits and desires. Since her father’s death, dreams dragged through her nights like heavy,
twined cables under the Atlantic.She had a dream of her own death in which no one noticed her absence.
Ellen needed some things to keep her afloat and in the world. Her name, for example, or a certificate of merit that would say:
Look. You have performed splendidly. Many people love you.