“Because it’s your stuff and that’s how you make a new place feel like home,” Orlaith ventured. That’s certainly how she’d felt when she’d moved out and had been trying to make the crappy apartment in Treaty Towers feel more homey. The more stuff from home she unpacked, the more if did. “Of course, you’d actually need to unpack for it to work.” She surveyed the calamity of boxes with a grin and a raised brow. “How long have you lived here now, Sylvia?”Â
Orlaith navigated around the boxes carefully, umbrella still held tactically over her head, just in case the bird left the comfort of the kitchen. “That’ll work just fine and I can’t imagine your brother would get under that sheet anymore, unless he stopped growing as a kid. Anyway, worst comes to worst we’ll chuck it in the wash and he never has to know it was used in a bird rescue. Or is it an apartment rescue?” It was hard to know what was taking more of a hit, the bird or the apartment.Â
“So we just— sneak in, hopefully without disturbing the bird, and chuck the sheet over its head, which I know sounds mean, but it’s calming for them, if I recall correctly. It should stay still enough once it can’t see that we can grab it and help it out.” They could decide who did the grabbing later.Â
“Not that long!” Sylvia insisted, and she didn’t mean it to be a lie but as she thought back on the days that passed into weeks into months she was forced to confront the mistruth. “I’ll do it tomorrow,” she amended. And then, to stress it both to herself and to Orlaith, insisted: “Seriously.”
Sylvia put a hand to the rim of her baseball cap and adjusted the thing as if it were armor for battle; in many ways it was. She braced herself in the hallway before taking the final plunge through the relative darkness into the harsh light of the kitchen.Â
The bird, no longer flapping like mad, huddled into itself in the corner near the would-be-snack cupboard (if Sylvia ever stopped ordering takeaways and went to the damn market like she kept planning to do). “Shh,” Sylvia hushed, though even she wasn’t sure if it was meant to quiet her and Orlaith’s steps, or to comfort the poor creature that she could now see was no hell-bent nuisance but just a hurt creature in a strange place. There was something familiar in that notion, she felt her shoulders fall at ease.Â
And then she threw the blanket over its head and hoped Orliath was right, and it would be a comfort to the bird. Sylvia thought it was likely true; she often felt better and comforted by pulling the covers over her head, too.Â
“I think I’ve got it,” she said, preparing to squat and scoop the swaddled bird into her arms. “Can you go ahead and get the window unlatched? I’ll follow behind.” Against her chest she could feel the bird’s staccato heartbeat racing her own as she stood to follow.