Half Brother (13 page)

“Maybe you should accept you’ve got a stupid son,” I said, and wanted to add:
But there’s probably an experiment you can do to make me smarter.

“That’s enough, Ben,” he snapped, and I knew it was time to stop.

Just then Mom came in with Zan, walking hand in hand. He’d finished his breakfast, and was all cleaned up. “You guys all ready?” Mom asked. “All ready,” Dad replied.

Zan looked from me to Dad, then back to me again, and it was like he knew exactly what had passed between us. Maybe he could sense or smell it. He reached out his arms to me for a hug. I picked him up.

“Don’t pick him up unless he signs,” Dad told me.

I put him back down.

Dad flicked a switch on the wall and started the cameras. It had been two weeks since we’d started filming everything, and Zan was signing less. Peter had noticed it, and everyone else had too. So Dad wanted to take Zan through a session himself and evaluate the situation.

We got Zan seated on his chair, opposite me and Dad. Dad wanted me around because Zan usually misbehaved when he was alone with him, and Dad knew I’d help keep him seated and happy. I thought it was pretty rich that Dad ticked me off
for not doing better at school, and then expected me to help him with his research.

Zan always looked a bit forlorn sitting in his chair. He was still so small and his head barely cleared the table. He signed
out
to me, but I shook my head and told him to wait.

From the fun box on the floor, Dad took out Zan’s favourite baby doll and put it on the table. Usually this would trigger all sorts of signs. You could
give
the baby and
hide
the baby and put the baby
up
and put the baby
down
and
hug
the baby.

But Zan just looked at it like he’d never seen it before in his life.

He turned to me and signed
out
again. He wanted to play outside.

Dad waited a minute and then signed
baby
himself, trying to cue Zan.

Zan stared at him blankly. And suddenly I wondered if he was punishing Dad for being mean to me. Was he saying,
I’m not doing squat unless you start being nicer to Ben.
It was crazy, probably, but thinking it made me feel kind of happy.

Then Zan got off his chair. Dad picked him up and put him back on.

“Sit, Zan,” he said, making the signs.

Dad put the baby away. From the fun box, he took a cup, and a bottle of ginger ale—Zan’s favourite drink. Usually just the sight of the bottle was enough to start him begging. Today he stared at it without any interest. Dad poured himself a drink, raised it to his mouth, and had a sip, making appreciative smacking noises.

Zan scampered off his chair.

Dad put him back on and said, sternly, “Sit, Zan!”

Zan sat.

Dad got out the music box, which we were using to teach Zan the sign for
listen.
Zan loved it when we wound it up and the tune came scrolling out from somewhere inside the box. But today, Zan couldn’t have looked more bored.

“I don’t think he’s in the mood,” I told Dad.

“Clearly not,” said Dad, looking at me like I was somehow responsible, like it was something Zan and I had cooked up just to annoy him.

Part of me wanted Zan to perform, because I was suddenly scared that if he didn’t, Dad might punish him. Make him sit in the chair all morning, or go without lunch.

And the other part of me was full of admiration. Zan could talk, but he was choosing not to.

He was saying he didn’t feel like it. He was saying no.

He was giving my father the finger.

I wished I had Zan’s courage.

A couple of days later, Peter called in sick, so Mom had to fill in for him. When I got home after school, she was wiped out. She’d done a double shift, and Zan had been acting up all day. He’d thrown his food and ripped off his diaper and peed on the floor, and he’d been aggressive with one of the new students.

That night I put him to bed, and he was so exhausted he was asleep the moment he was in his pyjamas and had the
bottle to his lips. Looking at his small, sleeping body it was hard to imagine he was capable of such mischief.

Later that night, I woke up to Mom and Dad having an argument in their bedroom. They always seemed to have them at night, I guess so I wouldn’t hear. But usually I woke up anyway, and stood by my door so I could hear better.

Sometimes I wondered if they liked fighting. Mom was pretty dramatic and usually did most of the talking. Dad was calm and soft-spoken. When I was younger, I used to feel sorry for Dad, because I’d hear him talking less and less, and I’d imagine him getting kind of worn out and saggy. But I was wrong. Dad was like a camel. He paced himself. He could go on forever with very little food or water and save his energy and stay strong. It was hard to know who won most of the fights, but I figured it was usually Dad.

“You never play with him,” Mom was saying.

“He doesn’t need me to play with him,” Dad said.

I was confused. Were they talking about me?

“And when you do,” Mom went on, “it’s to test him. I don’t think that’s healthy for the relationship.”

“What’s this really about?” said Dad, in his infuriating psychologist’s voice. “You had a hard day. I appreciate that, Sarah. Zan acted up and you had to take an extra shift, and you’re exhausted.”

“You can’t dismiss it that easily, Richard,” Mom argued. “You set this thing in motion, you can’t just walk away from it.”

“How on earth am I walking away?” he said. “I’m overseeing this entire experiment. I don’t need to be in the trenches every day collecting data. That’s what the students do.”

In the
trenches?
Was that really how Dad saw spending time with Zan?

“This experiment,” said Mom, “relies on cross-fostering. Raising Zan human. You are supposed to be his
father.
Now, how would you describe being a father, I’m just interested to know. What kind of obligations and responsibilities and activities does that entail? In your esteemed opinion?”

She was sounding pretty sarcastic, and I heard Dad give an impatient sigh. “In the wild, the fathers don’t have anything to do with the babies. They don’t even know who the fathers are mostly. Zan gravitates more naturally to his mother and siblings. Ben, Peter, the others—they’re surrogate siblings and playmates. And he’s got you. That’s what he needs. That’s natural.”

“But teaching him human language is not. You can’t have it both ways, Richard. Are we raising him like a chimp or a human?”

“You’re suggesting I’m a weak father figure for him.” Was that amusement in Dad’s voice?

Mom said, “He certainly hasn’t bonded with you. That doesn’t bother you?”

“No,” said Dad.

Mom muttered something that sounded like “no surprise there.”

“Look, I’m sorry you had a hard day.”

There was a pause and I was hoping he’d say something nice—not so much about Mom, but about Zan. What he said next was, “I regret not getting a female.”

Mom said nothing.

Dad went on. “I heard they were more compliant—but what could I do? All they had available was a male, and we couldn’t wait forever.”

I felt sick. Didn’t Dad feel
anything
for Zan? How could he just wish for another chimp—an easier chimp—just like that?

“Zan’s not the problem,” said Mom. “You’ve got to be more involved.”

“I don’t have time. Anyway, I’m not an animal person, you know that.”

“Zan thinks he’s human.”

“We talked about this at the outset,” Dad said. “We talked about the risks of getting sentimental about the subject.”

“Sentimental,” said Mom disdainfully. “Is every kind of emotion
sentimental
for you?”

“We knew it would interfere with the experiment,” Dad persisted.

Mom snorted. “I don’t think that was ever a risk for you, Richard. But, yes, it’s a risk for me, and it’s certainly a risk for Ben.”

“Ben will adjust,” Dad said.

I wasn’t quite sure what they were talking about, and I frowned, listening hard. But they must have moved off into the bathroom, or they were talking more quietly now, because I couldn’t hear any more.

I went back to bed, but it took me a long time to get to sleep.

The next morning I woke up early. It was six-thirty and the house was quiet. I didn’t hear any hooting noises coming from the baby monitor, so Zan must’ve been asleep too.

But I remembered how he’d been sick in the summer, and I felt anxious after all of Mom and Dad’s arguing in the night. Still in my pyjamas, I went downstairs, unlocked the door to Zan’s suite, and quietly went in. I thought he’d like it if I was there when he woke up. It would be a surprise, and I could imagine his eyes going all wide and how he’d give an excited pant-hoot and fling himself into my arms. I wanted his body against me.

I walked through the playroom and silently opened the door to his bedroom. The sun was on the rise and even though the curtains were still drawn, there was plenty of gentle light in the room.

I was surprised to see Zan already awake, sitting up in his bed, his back to me. He was playing with his dolls. He’d arranged them in a semicircle around himself: the baby, the chimp, the chick, G.I. Joe.

He was
signing
to them.

With one hand he offered the chick his empty bottle of milk, and with his free hand he signed
drink.
He held the bottle to the chick’s mouth for a moment, then dropped it impatiently and signed
hug.
He picked up the chick and clutched it to his chest.

As I stood there, watching in wonder, Zan turned to look at me. His expression said:
Can I help you?

I almost felt like I should apologize for interrupting, and come back later. I was hoping he’d turn back to his toys and
keep signing. But now that Zan had seen me, he lost interest in his dolls. With a hoot he stood and scampered towards me, arms raised to be picked up. I waited until he signed
hug
before I lifted him.

I changed his puffy diaper, my mind buzzing the whole time with what I’d just seen. He’d been talking to his toys, trying to teach them language!

I heard Mom in the kitchen, and right away carried Zan out to tell her. She seemed as excited as I was, and we hurried upstairs to tell Dad. He was in his boxer shorts, buttoning up his shirt, when we all barged in.

“I’d love to get that on film,” he said. “I wonder if we can rig up a camera in his bedroom.”

“It means he’s not just imitating us,” said Mom.

“Or doing it for reward,” he added excitedly. “He’s applying it spontaneously, in different contexts.”

“He really is remarkable,” I said to Dad. “Isn’t he?”

Dad looked at me for a moment, then winked. “He is, Ben. He’s remarkable.”

S
he let me kiss her. It’s weird, but that’s how I thought about it. Not
we kissed
or
she kissed me back
but:
she
let
me kiss her.
It was at the dance, Friday night.

Earlier, when Mom had dropped me at the Cordova Heights Rec Centre, I’d spotted Jennifer way back in the parking lot, with David and Hugh and some of their other friends. Maybe they were doing a bit of drinking before they came inside. I thought about going over, but I didn’t want it to look like I was squeezing in on them, uninvited. I wondered why they hadn’t mentioned anything to me.
Hey, Tarzan, meet us back in the parking lot for some liquid refreshment.
So I just headed for the main doors and went inside.

There were a bunch of other private schools at the dance, and it was crowded. I milled around trying to find people I knew, and it seemed to take ages before I finally spotted Jennifer, dancing with Hugh. It was a great song and she
looked like she was having a really good time, and I wished it was me out there with her.

I found David standing on the sidelines with Evan.

“Tarzan, hey!” he said, waving me over.

We talked a bit, but the music was so loud we were shouting into each other’s ears. His eyes kept darting all over the place. I smelled booze on his breath.

“You tanked up, Tarzan?” he asked. “You imbibe some European cocktails with your très groovy parents?”

I shook my head. I didn’t feel like I needed
anything
to drink. The music pulsed through me, up through the floor, the bass thumping in the centre of my chest like a bigger, better heart. I was in this fabulous cave of sound and shadow and light. I wanted to get out there on the dance floor.

When ABBA’s “Waterloo” came on I started walking out towards Jennifer to ask her, but she didn’t see me, and kept dancing with Hugh. So I spotted Selena Grove, who was pretty cute, and asked her to dance. I caught Jennifer’s eye and she waved at me and beamed, which made me feel great.

The song went fast, these big, bright, loud moments all jammed together. Dancing, sound swirling, shouting to be heard, arms pumping, light everywhere like confetti, the acrid smell of dry ice, a whiff of shampoo as a girl whirled past. And the music hurtling you through it all.

After Selena, I danced with Jennifer a few times. I wondered if she’d had something to drink too, because she seemed more affectionate than usual, grabbing my arms and jumping up and down.

Afterwards, she went back to Shannon and Jane and they
all hugged each other. I hung out with them for a bit, but it was frustrating because it was really hard to hear, and mostly they seemed to be laughing at bad dancers or complaining about the square music the DJ was playing.

I didn’t want to look like a barnacle on Jennifer, so I went off to get a drink and then danced with some other girls, and talked to some of the guys from my grade. On one side of the hall was a kind of observation gallery and I could see people up there in the near dark, making out. I wished I could take Jennifer’s hand and lead her up there too—but maybe not. Maybe that was more for professional making out, and I wouldn’t know what I was doing. It looked pretty intense.