Sarara Scivyer
There was a time when I was little when all my dad did was watch birds. He’d spend hours sitting in the yard, gazing up at the trees dotting our small property, sitting and waiting. He was nothing if not patient.
I only remember this because of the countless times he made me join him. I never told him how much I enjoyed it and there is a part of me that will always wish I did. Between the arguments and the silence that grew in my older age, the birds were something we always had in common. When hours stretched between our fights, I knew I would find him in the yard, still and stoic, sharing a wordless apology when I came to join him.
Dad was never really sure how to raise daughters, especially not alone. Where Mum loved birds, Dad loved her. That was something he could never let go of. In time, I realised that he looked for her in her hobbies; growing flowers in the garden to catch glimpses of her when the roses bloomed; seeing her in her favourite birds that landed on the bird feeder he had hung in the tree. He saw her in my sister and I, yet that was something I never knew if he loved or hated.
Her excuses of “it’s too much” and “I can’t do this anymore” slipped under my door the night she left. It would be the last time I heard her voice.
It was the next day that I found Dad staring into the tree in the backyard. I had come out to show him a clay flower I made with the air-dry clay I found in Mum’s studio.
I had never seen him so still before, never so concentrated. My little sister was crying in the house, but I didn’t think he could hear her—too focused on something in the tree. I saw that he had cut the last of the roses, chrysanthemums, and dahlia, and had put them together in a vase on the kitchen counter, maybe hoping they would bring her home.
‘What are you looking at?’ I grew impatient with waiting for him to acknowledge me.
‘Can you see the bird?’
I turned back toward the tree. Bringing my hand up to block the sun, I squinted, trying to find the bird he was looking at.
‘I can’t see anything.’
‘Here.’ He lifted me up then, pointing into the tree. From that height I could see much clearer, and through the branches, hidden by the leaves, there sure enough was a bird. I didn’t know what kind it was, I still don’t now, but it was beautiful. From then on I continued to paint birds.
From this close, I could see he had been crying and I knew it was something to do with Mum. This was the first and only time I’d ever seen him cry.
‘Where’s Mum gone?’
He swallowed, eyes looking around as though trying to find the answer. ‘She’s gone away for a while.’
‘Will she come back?’
‘I’m not sure.’
We both turned back to the bird who was now picking at something beneath its wing. I was seven at the time but I knew Mum wasn’t coming back and I knew Dad would never tell us why.
We sat in silence, something we would usually do if we weren’t arguing. As the world seemed to slow, we waited for the bird to eventually fly away, knowing it wouldn’t stay much longer.
Just like she had left indents in him, maybe he always saw pieces of Mum in the ones that left.