Read Online For the Forest of a Bird by Sue Saliba - Free Book Online

experience, or worst of all the woman’s name – since words captured things and made it hard for them to be anything other than what they were.
    â€˜I should have told you myself . . .’ her father began again, and this time Nella recognised his words from somewhere before. From the hospital, from the night she had gone to see him.
    She covered her face with her hands, perhaps to hide herself away from everything outside her, away from her father.
    He was silent. She stayed still within the darkness of her hidden self.
    And then she took her hands from her face and her father was still there but the expression on his face had changed. It was as if he was thinking things through, as if he was just realising something himself.
    â€˜Nella,’ he said. ‘Come on, come and rest in the sunroom, at least for now.’
    He edged himself out of the chair and she followed him to the little room at the back of the house that she always stayed in when she came to visit. Her room. Except now she didn’t sit herself down on the comfort of the bed as she usually did. Instead she stayed standing beside its metal frame and she held her arms tight around herself.
    And her father paused as if he wanted to say something but then he turned and left the room, closing the door behind him.
    Solid, shut, or so it seemed . It was only when Nella looked more closely that she saw a gap where the wood of the door did not quite fit the frame. She stood for a long time watching the odd sunlight that made its way through the opening – a small determined stream.
    She walked slowly over to the door. The house must have shifted. There never had been such a space before; Nella was sure of it. She would have noticed since she knew every inch, every moment of this little room. She put her hand out towards the gap, but before she could reach it she stopped.
    Voices were coming from the lounge room.
    â€˜I can’t.’ It was her father’s voice, a near-whisper. ‘I can’t, Linda. She’s in there.’
    A pause.
    â€˜You can go without them, can’t you? Anyway, I’ve seen another pair in the bathroom, above the sink. I’ll go and get them for you.’
    â€˜No.’
    â€˜Linda.’
    The female voice spoke again. ‘I’m not wearing those, David . . . they don’t match this jacket. I’m not going out in those.’
    Silence.
    â€˜I’ll get them myself then.’
    â€˜No, don’t go in there, that is Nella’s . . .’
    And Nella heard footsteps, distinctly female footsteps, coming towards the room.
    She stood staring at the gap and waited for it to widen, for the stream of sunlight to become a flood. She waited.
    And waited.
    And then a car horn sounded from the road. Once, twice.
    â€˜Shit.’ The footsteps stopped.
    â€˜Shit. I’ll have to go.’ The footsteps turned and went back through the lounge room and straight to the front door. ‘I’ll see you later, David.’
    Nothing.
    â€˜David . . .?’
    But there was no reply, only the eventual noise of a car driving away. And when Nella opened the door, her father was sitting back in his chair looking at her and she was surprised at the warmth of the sudden sunlight.
    Full and bright, strong. Her father looked larger than real in the sun’s brightness.
    â€˜No . . . that is Nella’s . . . No, don’t go in there, that is Nella’s . . .’
She heard the words that had made it to her through the sudden gap in the house.
His
words.
    Perhaps things were as they always had been. Perhaps this woman was just someone briefly in her father’s life – insignificant. Yes, why not? People had friends . . . girlfriends, boyfriends . . . what adults might call partners, but nothing could replace a child, no one could replace your daughter, your only daughter.
    It made