December 25, 1999
Guests were due to arrive in under thirty minutes, and Valerie Wynford still hadn't dressed.
Matt sat in a corner of his mother's bedroom, peeling the label off an empty CD case. The CD itself was running on loop on a stereo at the far end of the room, eleven songs he'd listened to over and over - never bothering to turn the Repeat off. He hummed along to the words he knew so well "July, she will fly and give no warning to her flight / August die she must, the autumn winds grow chilly and cold". The album cover carried a picture of two men winding down a wintery path, and just as Matt was picturing where it led the track ended.
"Momma," Matt said, scrambling off the bed and across the room toward the CD player as the next depressingly familiar intro reverberated in his ears. "I don't like this song."
"Why not, sweetie? It's by Simon & Garfunkel, and they're a class act. It was one of your father's favourites growing up."
Valerie rose to her feet, wearing only a silky black corset and high-heeled sparkling shoes. Waist-length hair hung like a chocolate curtain down her back.
"Is that what you're wearing for the party tonight?" Matt asked, pushing the "Next" button on the stereo.
His mother laughed and ran the hair-iron along a stray dark lock across her forehead. "No, that's what I'm wearing tonight," she said, and jerked a thumb in the direction of the king-sized bed, where a shimmering blue heap sparkled on the counterpane.
"Oh," Matt said, wondering why he hadn't seen it before. The button on the stereo-player was stuck, so he crammed his little finger in the minute gap and pried it loose. The harmonizing stopped at once and the intro to the next track, a lively guitar accompanied by percussion, began instead. "I did not like that song," he reiterated, for the simple sake of clarity.
"A Most Peculiar Man? Why not?" Valerie Wynford had her eyes trained on the mirror. Though her voice was warm and concerned, Matt knew she was preoccupied.
"I don't know," he sighed, trying to loosen the bow attached to his collar. "What does peculiar mean?"
"It means... strange. Odd. Different from everybody else. Don't fidget with your bow-tie, honey."
"So why did he die?"
"Who died?"
"The man in the song," said Matt impatiently. She could be so slow sometimes. "Why'd he die?"
Valerie walked slowly to her bed. She slipped the dress over her head and the soft midnight-blue fabric seemed to melt and drape over her body like chocolate sauce on ice-cream. A long slit in the material ran all the way up her right leg, revealing tanned and glossy skin. Then suddenly she materialized beside Matt and, with no warning whatsoever, scooped him into her arms. In three brisk strides they were at the mirror again, and Valerie's perfume was making Matt's nose itch. "What'd you say?"
"Momma," he said indignantly. "The Most Peculiar Man!"
"Oh." She rocked her arms from side to side, staring at her son's reflection thoughtfully. "He died... because he left the gas on one today, and he fell asleep real quickly. Probably felt nothing."
"Why'd he do that?"
"Because he wanted to die."
"But why?"
Valerie patted down a few stray strands of hair on Matt's forehead, chewing her lip in contemplation. "Because he thought nobody loved him, and he didn't have any friends."
"So what?"
"It's silly, isn't it? But when you're older, sweetie, perhaps you'll understand. What he did was wrong, of course, but sometimes people that get lonely and sad don't feel like living anymore."
"But he had a brother," Matt pointed out. He sang the last verse, just in case she didn't know it. "Mrs. Riordan says he has a brother somewhere / who should be notified soon."
"I know the words." to his surprise she hugged him even tighter, dropping a quick kiss on his forehead before setting him down on the dressing table beside her lipstick holder.
"Maybe he and his brother didn't talk much?" Matt persisted. "Tracy on the tenth floor has a brother, and he's in sixth grade now so he's old. But they don't talk either."
Valerie closed a narrow velvet box with a sharp snap. "That happens sometimes too, Mattie. Not to everyone, and let's hope it never happens to you."
"But I don't have a brother."
She froze. Cream-colored foundation oozed out of a tube being crushed under her pencil-sized heel, but she didn't seem to notice. Valerie placed her hands on either of his face, fingers overlapping.
"Mattie, honey, there's something your daddy wants me to tell you," she said slowly. "I was putting it off, but I can't any longer - have to do it tonight." Her irises always reminded him of clear tea in an ivory cup, now he imagined the same tea sizzling and burning in a forgotten kettle. "Now, you're my baby. My only child that I carried for nine months, the only one I've ever had or will have. No one else in the world can ever call me 'Momma' but you. Does that make sense?"
Matt nodded, wondering where she was going with this. He'd just wanted to know why the Most Peculiar Man killed himself.
"But - uh - things are a little different for daddy," she continued, gripping his shoulders now. "He wants me to tell you this, because he, apparently, cannot do so himself." Her teeth clenched and un-clenched rapidly, making little clicking sounds that echoed in the back of her head.
"What does apparently-"
"Never mind. Listen." Valerie pulled him off the dressing table and cradled him once again, almost like an infant. Matt rested his head on her shoulder; the flowery scent was making him sleepy now. "You are my only son. But daddy-" she cleared her throat uncomfortably "- has another son, a boy just like you. He's four years old, same as you, and his name is Michael. You're going to meet him tonight at dinner."
Matt sat up, and his mother automatically shifted her arms to hold him steady. "How can daddy have another son if you don't?"
She was laughing, but he could tell by her tone she wasn't about to joke. "Because that son has a different mommy. But, since you both have the same Daddy, you're brothers. Half brothers."
"So I do have a brother," Matt said. He slipped from his mother's arms and perched back on the edge of the dressing table.
"You do, sweetie. It's difficult to explain how, but you do."
"Have you met him?" Jealousy suddenly rose in him like an angry snake. What if his father preferred his "other" family to his real one?
"I haven't. Nor have I met his... mother." Valerie rolled her eyes, and began running a glossy crimson brush over pursed lips. "Your Uncle Andy and Aunt Jasmyn will be here for dinner tonight, too. With your cousin Jamie, of course. So will your Grandpa and Grandma. And Katherine will be there too, along with her son."
Valerie's voice broke on the last word.
Their moderately-extended family arrived family just as Valerie was dabbing a pink fluffy sponge on each cheekbone. Uncle Andy entered the house first, a sharp, 'peculiar' smell following him around - it immediately reminded Matt of the clear, watery liquid that his mother used to remove her nail polish. On sight of his brother's wife and child, Andy Wynford quickly stashed the silver flask he was carrying in his blazer pocket and hoisted Matt onto his shoulders.
"How's my buddy?" he cried, swooping low to avoid the glittering chandeliers. Matt screamed with delight and clung to his uncle's hair like the reins of a horse. "That's right, Mattie, you're my favorite little bud. I like you better than I do your dad."
"That's what a lot of people say these days," Valerie said lightly. She leaned up and kissed her brother-in-law hello. From his vantage position on Uncle Andy's shoulder, Matt could see the smoky grey shimmer on his mother's eyelids. "Where's Jasmyn and Jamie?"
"We're here," called a husky voice, and the front doors swung open.
Aunt Jasmyn swept into the drawing room, dressed in a startling, blood-red evening gown and half-dragging Jamie along by the hand. Valerie kissed her once on each cheek, then bent down and drew Jamie into her arms. "Hello, my little angel."
Jamie did not deign to answer. He'd always been quiet, and when he talked he liked using big words that Matt couldn't understand, a habit which irritated Matt to no end. Jamie hadn't even started upper kindergarten yet, same as Matt, so how on earth did he know what words like 'privilege' meant? Even now he stared absently (scratch that, vacantly) into space, top shirt buttons undone, shoelaces untied, collar turned up the wrong way.
"-since he insisted on bringing his hip flask," Aunt Jasmyn was saying, shooting her husband a nasty look. Her eyes flickered upward and for the first time noticed Matt, still perched on Andy's shoulder. "But who cares what a nuisance Uncle Andy was on the ride here, if it means I get to see my sunshine again? Come here, baby."
Matt found himself passed like a loaf of bread from his uncle's arms to his aunt's. Aunt Jasmyn was tall - at eye level with her husband, and she never wore heels. Her hands were soft and papery, and as soon as he felt the brush of her damp red lips against his skin, he wriggled out of her grasp. "Is it true," she continued to his mother, "that Sam's... other family is coming to dinner tonight?"
Matt stiffened. His mother lit a cigarette, which appeared to be held up by a long black metal stick. "They're not his other family. Don't call them that, and certainly not in front of Mattie."
"Sorry," Aunt Jasmyn said quickly. "But... are they?"
"Yes." At that very moment, a car-door slammed from out in the driveway.
"Is that Sam?" Uncle Andy asked swiftly. "Or Mom and Dad?"
"No," said Valerie nervously. "I talked to him minutes ago, and he's still stuck at work, and so's Martin... trust them to be late to their own family's Christmas dinner."
"So then..."
The doorbell rang in answer to their speculation, though the door was wide open. A woman was standing in the doorway, a boy by her side. "Can I come in?"
"Of course." Valerie hurried forward. She didn't kiss the new lady like she had Aunt Jasmyn, but extended her arm a good foot away from her body. "Welcome. Merry Christmas."
"Thanks, Merry Christmas to you too."
The woman had yellow hair, the color of ripe corn, but her son's was lighter, softer somehow - like beach sand. Matt sidled closer to his mother and peeped out at his "half-brother" from behind her knee. They were the exact same height, eye to eye - and his were astonishingly blue, like the sky at noon on a scorching, cloudless day. Then Katherine bent down, and Matt found himself looking into her eyes instead, identical to her son's, which for an instant disoriented him.
"Hello Matt," she said; her voice was cool and even. "I'm Katherine."
He nodded, not sure what to say since she already seemed to know his name. She acknowledged his nod and rose again, in a calm manner similar to her tone. The boy stood upright, a foot away from his own mother, the arms that folded across his chest in passive-aggressive defiance contrasting sharply with vulnerable, breathless eyes that seemed to hold both the world and nothing.
"Are you Michael Wynford?" Matt blurted out the words, and it seemed the whole room had gone silent. In a few seconds he realized it had not, but that his senses, for that tiny span had simply failed to register the external world and its associated perceptions - for the adults were passing around a bottle of wine and talking amongst themselves, yet he and his brother were alone, standing face to face for the first time.
"Yes and no." His voice had an oddly musical quality, not as if he sang the words rather than spoke them, but as if they possessed an innate rhythm, a primordial connection with the very essence of sound. "I'm Michael Black."