Things As They Are? Short Stories (1993) - Plot & Excerpts
“21 May 1993 To Dad —with much loveon your birthday from Lizzie ttOXO”Inscribed with blue ink on flyleaf of Guy Vanderhaeghe’s book of short stories, “Things as They Are?”I bought it at the TC book sale, 18 years later, for just $2. It pains me, well perhaps pain is a bit strong. I feel perhaps slightly embarassed, that I have seen something I shouldnt have seen, something private, whenever I buy a used book that has an inscription in it like this. Especially one given in love. It was a proffering of love, a surrogate, a marker of the giver’s esteem. And now this evidence of thoughtfulness has been discarded. An anonymous throwaway, as if it matters not who catches it as it falls. “Dad” isnt even around to see if anyone even catches it at all. The writing looks young, Lizzie looks like a teenager, or perhaps in her early 20s. Now Lizzie would be in her late 30s perhaps, with children of her own. Perhaps her children have given her books as gifts too, writing their own inscriptions “To Mom, with love”. Does Lizzie regard them with the same sense of casual possession as her father did?But maybe I am judging “Dad” too harshly. Maybe “Dad” died, and Lizzie and her family, perhaps with the aid of her own daughter, had to clear out Dad’s possessions. All of his books went to the TC book sale because it was a good cause. No, that can’t be it — Lizzie wouldn't have given away the book that she had chosen so carefully for her dad all those years ago. It would be a precious memory of that birthday now — physical proof that it happened, that her dad lived, and that she loved him.No, Dad just had to cull the library. The book has been around long enough, he’s not going to read it again, it’s time to move on
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