The air was heavy with the dampness of a coming storm. Grey carpeted the sky so completely that even at 4.00 p.m. the cars still needed full headlights and the streetlamps shone feebly into the perpetual twilight.

At the manor, it was quiet, unnaturally so. Even the usual leeches who spent their time around my uncles' home were indoors inaudibly trying to drown their misery in free liquor. I was always jealous of the people who drunk to drown their sorrows, the ones who used chemicals to run away. It did nothing for me.

Matthew was in his office leafing through a magazine. When I sat across from him, he closed the magazine, put it down and turned to me. "Why are you here today? You never willingly spend your free time at home anymore. Especially during the weekdays."

The gloom of the day was reflected in my mood. I was in terrible confusion; trapped in the clutches of memories, drifting. All my insecurities were floating to the surface.

"I needed to talk to you."

"About? Didn't you go to work today?"

"No."

"Do you want to smoke?"

"Sure."

He took a small satchel of tobacco from his desk tamping it into a pipe. He clamped the pipe between his teeth, struck a wooden match on the deck giving it time to burn back on the wood. Then hovering the match over the packed tobacco, he sipped pulling the flame inward. Grand puffs of smoke curled around his head.

He looked up at me. I saw then that he was also in a state of rage. I wanted to ask him what had happened. I wanted to know if it had anything to do with the family business, but I felt like the walls of the room was closing in on me. I had too much on my mind to care about anything else.

Matthew stood and looked outside the window with his back to me. He wasn't one to talk much, always the quiet type, and unless his input was needed you would never hear him say anything. When James first brought him to live at the manor, it was very annoying to me but as we grew closer I came to appreciate the silence. I had never met anyone as introspective as he was.

"Do you think that James taught us how to build detachment over everything around us until it was impossible to discern true connections?" I asked.

The question took him by surprise. Matthew raised an eyebrow for a moment before looking outside the window once more. Quietly, he contemplated the question.

"Why are you thinking about that?"

"I have to confess that I'm a little conflicted and that's why I came to see you today. Maybe you can help me figure things out."

He passed the cigar over to me. The smoke licked my fingerprints as a long pull filled my mouth with a bitter taste of artificial grape. A fix of nicotine on a bad day. A way to keep the bad thoughts at bay. He poured himself a glass from the half-open bottle of cognac on the desk. He drank it at a breath and sat against the wall which had been uncovered.

"Maybe for me. Not so much for you. I've always been jealous of how you connect with others, especially women." He looked questioningly at me. "Is this about the woman William mentioned? The one you've been keeping a secret from the family? The one you are hiding in your home?"

"Her name is Maria."

"I should have known something was happening." He smiled. "Lately, you look like a kid waking up on Christmas morning. What's she like?"

"Passionate. Fiery tempter. Unapologetic. Unlike anyone, I've met. When she came to stay with me, I had the perfect short-term plan. I thought I was just helping a woman in need. Someone who reminded me of my mother."

I didn't remember much about my mother. When I was a little boy and watched her with company, she frightened me. I kept my distance. In the eye of my memory, her hair was as dry as metal and brittle as a twig. A little darker than me with her mouth always redder than any blood. Always dressed in something too bright or too tight or too young.

My mother and my uncle got on very well. James often came around our home to spend time with her. They were close. Sometimes they played cards together. Other times they argued incessantly. I used to wonder what about.

When she died from alcoholism, James adopted me. Growing up, I asked him about her. He would only talk about her as my mother. Detached. It was like pulling teeth. So, I stopped. But Maria's presence dredged up memories of her. Suddenly, I was curious about who my mother was.

"I still don't understand," Matthew said. "What's the problem?"

"There are these moments when I feel connected to her. It's like the mask I have on is slipping and things... people who never mattered and things I didn't care for have started to matter."

"What's holding you back?"

"With all my other relationships, I wanted to get something in return so bad I invented everything. It was always transactional. I played every part I was required to play. But if you play a role long enough, really commit, does it ever become real?"

"It depends. Everybody's damaged by something. We're all empty, Edward. But we find ways to make it feel less bottomless. Does it matter how you do it?"

"Doesn't it?" A sudden unprecedented sorrow entered into me. "How do you know if you're capable of loving someone without consuming them?"

"I don't know. You're more in tune with who you are to figure that out than I am. If you do, you should let me know," Matthew said.

"James wants to meet her. He's asked me to bring her along with me for a meeting this Saturday."

"That's not good. He has something up his sleeve. What are you going to do? How will you get out of it?"

"I won't," I said. "I want them to meet."

Matthew raised his eyes from his glass. "You're trying to use James to scare her off?"

"The best place to hide, as you know, is in plain sight."

"I've never known you to take such an easy way out. I hope you're sure of what you're doing."

Locked in the reflection, I watched in the window as the night came down outside. I didn't know what I was doing anymore. I was off my game. Sloppy. Where was the orderly, effective, controlled Edward? How could I find him again?

"What about you?" I asked. "What's going on? You seem stressed."

He took a sip of his cognac. "Mahad's oldest son, Said, is being a headache. They are suddenly wary of us because of the police and James is on my case about it. You know how he is. It's driving me insane."

Matthew believed that he was a master of deceit. This was perhaps the first time since childhood that he lied to me. I felt his absence. But it wasn't the lie which was frightening; it was the fact whatever he had to lie about had to be so big that he didn't want me to know about. What was going on?

After several cigars and a bottle of gin, I left the manor and drove down the empty streets. It took ten minutes to get to Valentine's gated community. Everyone lived in cloned houses made from the same stencil. The houses had flat roofs - like every other - with beautiful shingles and wide gutters strewn with brown leaves.

The better part of my brain told me I was making a mistake, but everything led me to where I was. I needed to be around Valentine. She was skilled at making it easy for me to pretend I didn't exist. It was not the feeling of completeness I needed, but the feeling of not being empty.

Amid the darkness was the ever glow of the moon. It graced the sky as if it had some bright idea, something brilliant needed to shine upon the Earth. I wondered if Maria was looking at the same moon at the same moment. I liked that. The connectedness.

The gateman opened the gate for me. I stalled outside for a few seconds. In comparison to what waited for me at home, what lay ahead was lonely and phoney and worthless; unfit for an intelligent and educated person.

Waving the gateman off, I spun the wheel, and hit the brakes, backing off. Thin, dingy rain began to spit and drizzle past the lighted street lamps as I drove away. The pavements shone long and dark. My car moved over the highway; lights on full beam, the tires making their monotonous hiss over the rain-washed roads.

Maria lay in her bed with a book on her chest, curled like a baby on her side toward me. The sheet she used as a cover was tangled around her feet. Her body was brown and sweaty, the most beautiful creation I had ever seen.

I would have touched her to wake her up, but something stopped me. I was suddenly afraid. I felt in my heart a tenderness so painful I thought it would burst. Perhaps it was because she looked so innocent lying there with such perfect trust. Perhaps it was because she was much smaller than me. The desire that rose inside of me seemed monstrous.