a. I don't really believe that Ellen slept around on Bill. I do think that they fought all the time, mostly about his hunting, and that she was on the verge of leaving him when he went and got himself killed. And then, because Ellen is nothing if not contradictory, she was determined to stay at the Roadhouse and make the business work even without him.
b. That's part of why she gave Jo such a hard time about hunting -- she blames herself, because it was Ellen's decision to stay in the hunting world even after Bill died, and she should have known that her little girl was going to want to be just like her daddy. And that's exactly the thing Ellen fears the most, and the thing she'll do anything to prevent.
c. Ellen thought she didn't want kids at all. Then she had Jo, and decided she wanted more than one -- at least two, but three would have been better. But she had trouble conceiving, and then Bill died, and it was just her and Jo.
(I had meant to make one of these be about John so -- the strange thing was that she and John were friends, while Bill was alive. Better friends than John and Bill, actually, although of course she doesn't know what John and Bill talked about when it was just the two of them, hunting. Bill was a real talker, certainly. But anyway, she could forgive him for killing her husband, because she knew him, knew what hunting was like, had always known that Bill might die. And about a year after Bill's death, she and John did start sleeping together. But he was a strange man, stranger after Bill's death, and unreliable; they drifted apart in the end. Ellen knows that she didn't have whatever it was which might have healed John; she doesn't blame herself, but she regrets it, still.)
ellen = a!
a. I don't really believe that Ellen slept around on Bill. I do think that they fought all the time, mostly about his hunting, and that she was on the verge of leaving him when he went and got himself killed. And then, because Ellen is nothing if not contradictory, she was determined to stay at the Roadhouse and make the business work even without him.
b. That's part of why she gave Jo such a hard time about hunting -- she blames herself, because it was Ellen's decision to stay in the hunting world even after Bill died, and she should have known that her little girl was going to want to be just like her daddy. And that's exactly the thing Ellen fears the most, and the thing she'll do anything to prevent.
c. Ellen thought she didn't want kids at all. Then she had Jo, and decided she wanted more than one -- at least two, but three would have been better. But she had trouble conceiving, and then Bill died, and it was just her and Jo.
(I had meant to make one of these be about John so -- the strange thing was that she and John were friends, while Bill was alive. Better friends than John and Bill, actually, although of course she doesn't know what John and Bill talked about when it was just the two of them, hunting. Bill was a real talker, certainly. But anyway, she could forgive him for killing her husband, because she knew him, knew what hunting was like, had always known that Bill might die. And about a year after Bill's death, she and John did start sleeping together. But he was a strange man, stranger after Bill's death, and unreliable; they drifted apart in the end. Ellen knows that she didn't have whatever it was which might have healed John; she doesn't blame herself, but she regrets it, still.)