Free About a Girl by Joanne Horniman

a fishlike symbol of the intersection of the material and spiritual worlds (though for some reason, while he told me this, I remembered a nature program I’d seen on cormorants in China, which had been trained to fish; I kept thinking of the lines put round their throats to keep them from swallowing the fish they’d caught).
    There was a theory, Michael said, that the planning of Canberra had some esoteric secret buried in it. ‘There are secrets everywhere,’ I retorted. I could have been referring to Parliament House, sitting off in the distance, where our politicians often conceal the truth from us.
    I could also have meant the comfortable suburban homes – ours – that lay at the foot of the hill.

Chapter Five
    M Y FATHER COLLECTED Molly and me from home one Saturday morning and took us to his new place for the first time. Josh would not come with us. He had moved into the garage soon after our father left; it was his way of announcing that he was taking more independence for himself. He was nineteen and, as well as his studies, he had a job in a coffee shop in the city. He said he was saving to go into a share house.
    As the car pulled up outside my father’s rented house I tried to summon a feeling of reluctance. But the truth was, I longed to see where he lived and spend time with him. I missed him as bitterly as my mother did, but without feeling her anger.
    The house was one of those small, narrow, brick and fibro places, without much of a garden, and with old rolled-up newspapers rotting on the tussocky grass. But I’d heard my father complain it was expensive for all that, now he was supporting two households.
    The woman he’d left us for was called Morgan, a name that I knew meant ‘morning’. The only Morgan I’d ever known was a girl at my school who was dark-haired and bossy, and somehow that was the sort of person I had expected. So when I met this Morgan, my expectations were overthrown.
    â€˜Anna … hello,’ she said, moving forward with an uncertain expression on her face. She shook my hand; she looked as nervous as I was, but her touch was firm. As her hand slid from mine it was like something ineffable slipping from my grasp.
    Later, I was to learn that the habitual expression on her face was one of innate surprise. And she was so lovely to look at that it quietly took my breath away. She had clear skin, wore no make-up, and was casually dressed in old jeans and a striped top that looked just right. Her bare feet had beautiful toenails painted all different colours. Her long blonde hair looked as though she’d cut it herself: the fringe was all crooked. I could tell that I wasn’t what Morgan had expected either. Both of us were a little shy with the other.
    Of course my father would have given Morgan the run-down on Molly, to account for her special needs, but what had he told her about me? Would he have said, my difficult daughter … my clever daughter ? I couldn’t imagine, and it made me realise how little I really knew my father.
    â€˜Can I get you something to drink?’ Morgan asked. ‘Molly, I’ve heard that you like chocolate milk?’
    Molly clapped her hands, as she did when she was happy, and allowed Morgan to lead her into the kitchen.
    Then Morgan made me a cup of coffee, and asked me about my final year at school, and commiserated at how everyone made such a fuss about it.
    â€˜It’s not the end of the world if you don’t get the marks you want,’ she said. ‘I ended up taking time off for a while, went back and did a course I hated, and now I’m studying something I really love.’ She glanced at my father as she said this, but there was nothing flirtatious or ambiguous in it.
    My father showed me round the house. There was a spare room if Molly or I wanted to stay over, and a bedroom for my father and Morgan with just a double mattress on the floor, and cushions everywhere,