The FLOCK

De: Rod Raglin

Narrado por: Virtual Voice

Rewilding the Blue and Gold Macaw, her companion for twenty years and the last of the exotic birds she’d rescued, rehabilitated and rehomed has left Mattie with a big hole in her life.

Being brought up in foster care, she’s never had a family and isn’t even convinced it’s good or even necessary, but there have been moments when she’s felt its power–and her need. Maybe that’s what’s missing. Birds band together for safety, socialization–for a better chance of survival. It’s called a flock. Mattie wants to bring people together for the same reasons.

She’s getting little help from her partner, Simon, a First Nations leader committed to justice and equality for his people. He’s on the other side of the country leading a protest that has pitted him against Wendy Walters, the country's first Indigenous Prime Minister, and most powerful woman in the land, as well as made him a target for alt-right fanatics. Matters become further complicated when Mattie’s compelled to rescue not another parrot, but the three-year-old son of Simon’s cousin who died of a drug overdose and whose wife, and the child’s mother, may soon face a similar fate.

Mattie thought her intervention would be for just a few days, but that’s all it takes for her to fall in love with Howie and become committed to keeping him. She’s determined she won’t have the little guy endure what she did growing up, but it’s going to take compromise and sacrifice, neither of which are Mattie’s strong suits.

The first thing she needs to do is get Simon back home so they can present as a family at the custody hearing. That means she’ll have to persuade him to reconcile with Wendy. The two have a history and Wendy’s never given up trying to recruit Simon as a political ally and lover, but Mattie's willing to take the risk.

The outlook doesn’t look promising, and it gets worse when Mattie uses a baseball bat to defend her transexual friend from hate crime thugs. She’s charged with assault with a weapon and if convicted will be deemed an unfit parent and denied custody.

But Mattie’s not giving up. Using whatever resources are at hand, from humility to blackmail, she sets about to recruit the support she needs to have the courts grant her custody of the child she loves and gives her life purpose.

On the way, she begins to gather her flock, while learning that family, like everything else, gets better the more you work at it.