Pastoral Read Online Free Page A

Liz would go back to her toys and
remind the dolls and fuzzy bears that their  parents had died.
    Â Â Â Â Â â€“ Your mother and father are dead, she would say to each
of them.
    Â Â Â Â Â For all of that, she grew up to be a normal young girl, whatever ‘normal’ was when it had its hair cut. A shy child, she had opened up at school, making
friends easily at St. Mary’s Primary School. From there, they had the usual problems with her. Liz
questioned everything they did or said. For a time, she insisted they were not
her parents and so had no authority over her. For a very long time, they could
not get two words out of her. She would mutter at them on her way in or out of
the house.
    Â Â Â Â Â Then came Elizabeth’s interest in boys. There were the ‘wild years’ with Michael Newsome, the ‘dull years’ with Matthew Kendal and now, finally, there was Robbie Myers. How grateful Anne
had been that Liz had settled on a genuine country boy, one whose family owned
a farm just outside of Bright’s Grove.
    Â Â Â Â Â As far as Anne was concerned, dealing with young love was the most difficult
aspect of parenting. John regarded ‘boys’ as belonging to Elizabeth’s private life and refused to get involved. (Did he even know the difference
between Michael Newsome [black jacket, slicked hair] and Matthew Kendal
[baseball in spring, hockey in winter]?) John was unconditionally loving, and
that was fine, as far as it went, but Anne would have preferred to feel a
little of his steadying hand where Liz’s boyfriends were concerned.
    Â Â Â Â Â Anne herself was too involved, albeit discreetly, to be impartial. She
identified with Liz. She worried Liz would misstep, would end up with a
good-for-nothing townie who’d waste his life drawing a paycheque from Dow Chemical and pissing it away at
the Blackhawk Tavern. She wanted more for Liz whom, after all, she really did
think of (and love) as a daughter. If it came to that, it sometimes seemed to
Anne that Liz’s relationships were more important to her than they were to Liz herself.
    Â Â Â Â Â Despite her better instincts, despite John’s sombre advice, Anne had, in the past, allowed herself to feel for this or that
boy. It had broken her heart, for instance, when she learned how unfair Liz had
been to young Matthew. But then, who had asked her to talk about her  hopes for Liz and Matthew’s life together? And who knows if her enthusiasm hadn’t, in the end, turned Liz against the boy? She had sworn she would not allow
herself to care whom Liz brought home, had sworn to remain above it all or
beyond it, as John did. So, although this business with Robbie Myers would have
been difficult for anyone, it was even more so for her, because she had vowed
to keep out of her niece’s affairs.
    Â Â Â Â Â But what had she seen, exactly?
    Â Â Â Â Â She had gone to Sarnia to find cloth for the new drapes she would sew for the
living room. As she sometimes did when she was in the city, she allowed herself
to eat at the Lucky Dragon along the strip. It wasn’t only that she liked Chinese food; it gave her an indefinable thrill to eat
beef with black bean sauce in a big city. So, there she was in the Lucky
Dragon, at a table by the front window, when whom should she see in the parking
lot outside but Robbie Myers. Her heart lifted. She genuinely liked the boy. He
got out of his truck, walked around to the other side and opened the door for … Was that Jane Richardson? Yes, Fletcher Richardson’s daughter: dirty blond, thin, wearing a leather jacket two sizes too big. Thank
God the two did not come into the Dragon itself. It would have been humiliating
to face them. But why? What had they done? Nothing explicit or illicit, not
that she had seen. But you didn’t have to catch people at it to know there was