Half Brother Read Free Page A

tasted.
    “Sorry we didn’t get you to the lake or the pizza place,” Dad said.
    “It’s okay,” I lied. It had been a crazy day, with the movers and Mom arriving all at once, and getting the house in order, and making sure the chimpanzee had everything he needed. At least Dad had remembered to get me the bike—he’d been keeping it hidden in the garage. And it really was an excellent bike.
    “Let me get you some more ginger ale,” Mom said, after I’d choked down another sip of wine.
    She went to the kitchen and when she came back she was holding a birthday cake, thirteen candles lit up. She and Dad launched into “Happy Birthday to You.” Normally it made me kind of embarrassed when they sang, but this time I couldn’t help smiling, because I honestly hadn’t thought there’d be cake. Mom must have made a special trip earlier to get one.
    I blew out the candles and made a wish. I wished that we’d be happy in our new home.
    Then I looked over at baby Zan, all swaddled in his bassinet, and thought:
    We are the weirdest family in the world.

T WO
F REAKY L ITTLE B ROTHER
    O ver the next few days Zan mostly slept, and Mom kept him in his little bassinet while we unpacked boxes and shifted furniture and put our books on the shelves. I could tell that Mom wasn’t thrilled with the house. She said things like: “Well, it’s no beauty, but it’s very spacious.” She liked the backyard (even if it was enclosed with a high chain-link fence) and the trees, and the farms all around.
    I was pretty excited about setting up my new room with my posters and big floor cushions. Even better, the walk-in closet was big enough for a table to hold my enlarger and trays, so I had my own personal darkroom.
    When Zan wasn’t sleeping he wanted to be held. He needed bottles every two hours. Mom carried him everywhere with her in one of those colorful African slings. She changed Zan’sdiapers and bathed him and dressed him—I didn’t think I’d ever seen her so happy.
    “Would you like to hold him?” she sometimes asked me.
    I shook my head. I didn’t want to touch him.
    When Mom held Zan it looked completely natural; when Dad held him it never looked quite right, even when he made cooing sounds and rocked him. Usually Zan would start whimpering, and Dad would look at Mom and go, “Am I doing something wrong?” and she’d say, “No, no, he’s probably just hungry or wet. Let me see.” And Dad would hand him over, looking relieved.
    I rode my bike a lot.
    Dad spent most of the time on the university campus, getting his office ready, and preparing for the courses he had to teach in the fall. And Mom was busy taking care of Zan and, when he was asleep, working on her thesis. Unlike Dad, she still had to get her PhD, and to do that, she had to write a thesis—a really long book. She was going to write it on Zan, while running the research project with Dad.
    My favourite time to go for a ride was in the evening right after supper, with the sun slanting through the tops of the trees and the shadows all long on the road. Toronto got so hot and humid in the summer sometimes, you just felt soaked stepping outside, no matter what time of day it was. Here, there always seemed to be a breeze, and in the mornings andevenings, the air cooled down so you didn’t get hot or thirsty.
    The road smelled like tar and dust and cut grass. It smelled like a promise. Whenever I passed a cluster of houses I’d slow down, hoping to see some other kids hanging out in the front yards. I guess I was hoping they’d wave me over and we’d all go tooling around on our bikes and buy Freezies at the local corner store. So far, no luck.
    Not far from our house was a construction site and a big sign facing the road, showing what the houses in the new sub-divison would look like. Right now it was just big machines perched crookedly on piles of rubble and lots of concrete cylinders. One evening I thought I saw a couple kids moving around near the