Arts and Entertainment
A Fork. A Knife. And a Shattered Plate Between
strings together indelible scenes. Ligaya’s time as a Hong Kong nanny. Vero’s melt down. A family Christmas in Mexico with Shane’s parents and jock brother, Vince. Ligaya’s arrival in Canada, first meeting Vero and then the boys. The list goes on with Vero, Shane and Ligaya sharply and compassionately drawn.
KEITH LIGGETT
IN THE LAST ESSAY OF Where the Bluebird Sings to Lemonade Springs: Living and Writing in the West, Wallace Stegner says about fiction, “You take something that is important to you, something you have brooded about. You try to see it as clearly as you can and to fix it in a transferable equivalent.” “She and Shane would be different (because they had before, on so many counts, been exactly that—different).” In the first paragraph of Between, Vero Nanton embarks on motherhood knowing it will be no big deal. She and Shane will handle parenting with all aplomb they’ve handled their life together. Vero and Shane are different. Their life is predictable and easily handled. Why not have kids? It’s no big deal. There is virtually no appreciation (or understanding) on their part of how having children fundamentally changes your worldview. While in fact, as any parent will tell you (and so many told Vero and Shane), there is virtually no possibility that bringing prodigy into the world will do otherwise. To balance things out, they have a second child. And as so many learn, the second child doesn’t mitigate the first, it exacerbates the situation. And in Vero and Shane’s case, the second son is developmentally disabled. He walks late. He only speaks gibberish. Vero melts down. Taking a handful of pills, sequestering herself in the pantry further fortified by bottles of white wine, she waits for Shane to find her and realize her distress. His solution? Hire a Filipino nanny. The nanny skirts the situation. Let Ligaya handle it. Even changing her name to be
ABDOU’S LITPICKS
THIS IS A MODERN TALE OF CHARACTERS FOUND IN WATERS OVER THEIR HEAD, WONDERING HOW LONG THEY CAN TREAD... little easier for the boys. On meeting the two boys, Elliot and Jamal, Ligaya introduces herself. “I am your nanny, Ligaya.” “No!” Elliott screams, “Lee-lee! Lee-lee! Lee-lee!” Ligaya does not know what this lee-lee means. She steps away. Shane quickly explains, “Elliot is very particular,” and they had told the boys her name was Lili, so it would be easier to pronounce. “He’s expecting a Lili.”
This is no Oprah Book. Sure, it’s about having kids, hiring a nanny to lighten the load, about changing family dynamics, existing family dynamic with the in-laws and brother, servant/elite relationships, the boredom of long-term relationships and how one couple seeks to avoid the pitfalls of all of the foregoing. It’s about having kids and taking in a nanny in the same way Norman Maclean’s A River Runs Through It is about fly fishing. “In our family, there was no clear line between religion and fly-fishing.” The lines Norman portrays are social and personal lines in Montana in the ‘30s, not fly lines. The same lines run through Between, but in the modern setting of a small mountain town. Between is no how-to manual. And it’s no how-not-to manual. In fact, two thirds of the way through the book, there is the sudden (you are so engrossed in the story until this point) realization, this cannot end well. This is a train running at full throttle with the engineer asleep on the cab. The bridge is out. No one’s bothered to tell him. All you can do is turn the page and watch. Fascinated. Engrossed. Enthralled.
This is a modern tale of characters found in waters over their head, wondering how long they can tread and then watching (and marveling) at what they choose to “‘Lili is fine,’ Ligaya says, to help them all.” grasp as life rings. With one fell swoop Ligaya gains a Clearly, Angie brooded long and hard on position, a family and loses her former the nature of bringing children into her life identity. and the consequences of hiring a Filipino nanny. And we’re all better for it. Between is told in two voices—that of Vero and that of Ligaya (happiness in Filipino). Angie Abdou will be at the Fernie Heritage Library With the voices separated at first—Vero in September 26 as the first author of this year’s Springdale and Ligaya first in Hong Kong, Booked! series, along with local band RedGirl. then coming to Canada to work for Vero and Shane. In the alternating voices, Angie FERNIEFIX.COM
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