Free Woman Chased by Crows by Marc Strange Page A

thought, at the end of the driveway for Leda to make some last-minute decisions regarding her outfit and to locate whatever it was that she needed so desperately for today’s activities. Why these items couldn’t have been resolved the previous evening was beyond him. His schedule was being severely tested by outside forces — daylight saving time, March Break, first rehearsal of
Our Town
. Leda wanted to run lines with someone before school. Someone named Peter. Oh dear, he thought. Well, she
is
seventeen, there was bound to be a Peter. Sooner or later.
    He beeped the horn three times, knowing full well that it wouldn’t speed up the process. On an ordinary morning, he would be using this hour for a solitary cruise along country roads, an indulgence he considered vital to his mental health, a time for checking out fields and trees and taking deep breaths. He was working himself into a mood. He could feel it. He was beset. Bloody idiot. The wedding had been arranged. He was sure of it. And now . . .
    He beeped again, more insistently this time, three long ones. Oh well, they’ll figure it out. None of his business anyway. And hell’s bells, he couldn’t be faulted for the
impulse
, the fatherly impulse to give his daughter a piece of land to raise horses, maybe raise children, a place on the other side of the hayfield, the hayfield that could be turned into a big pasture with a little work. And Erika was solidly behind the plan.
Wasn’t
she?
    â€œIf she wants,” his wife had said. She was grating potatoes at the time, cold, previously baked potatoes. Orwell knew there was rösti in the offing.
    â€œWhy wouldn’t she want?”
    â€œHow should I know why wouldn’t she want?”
    â€œWell, if she doesn’t want, she doesn’t have to accept. I thought it would be nice to offer.”
    â€œOffer,” said his wife. “Don’t push.”
    And he hadn’t pushed. Sure, he’d looked into the red tape involved, that only made sense. Township telling him he had to have permission to give his daughter . . . 
and
her husband, let’s not forget
that
part, husband
to be
, he hadn’t left
him
out of the equation. Damn! He was starting to feel like King Lear.
    Leda climbed in beside him. “You shouldn’t sit out here idling, you know,” she said disapprovingly. “It’s wasteful and polluting.”
    He put the car in gear, signalled right, even though there was no traffic and nothing behind him but a gate, and got moving. Finally. His sigh was audible. “If certain people were ready when they said they’d be, I wouldn’t be forced into idleness,” he said.
    The dashboard clock read 6:30, but in fact it was 7:30. He just hadn’t got around to resetting it. A small act of defiance. Or, he freely admitted, petulance. The Americans shoving the schedule forward arbitrarily annoyed the heck out of him, not to mention Ottawa’s usual lock-step response to go along with it. You can say it’s 7:30 all you want, but my internal clock knows different.
    Traffic was picking up, but not yet heavy. The sky was uniformly grey and rain was beginning to spatter the windshield.
    â€œYou have to get rid of him, Oldad.”
    â€œNonsense. He’ll be twenty-five years old next year and good as new. He’s a classic.”
    â€œHe’s antediluvian.”
    â€œHe is no such thing.” Leda was referring to her father’s venerable and beloved (by him) 1987 Dodge Ramcharger 4x4, always referred to in the masculine. “Bozo is a loyal, hardworking . . .”
    â€œGas-guzzling, air-polluting . . .” Leda was an eco-warrior these days. Among other things.
    â€œHe’s in complete compliance.” Orwell could hear the big V8 purring sweetly. It gave him pleasure. Stan, the master mechanic at Gary’s Service Centre, had Bozo tuned to perfection. “We