Kinship origins — and the four-way relation-lattice left open

pivotal · UNDATED (birth, B.S. era, Vermont/Québec)

• When: UNDATED (Tavis's birth and infancy, B.S. era; the account reconstructed decades later)
• What: Per Hal's reconstruction (its sole source Orin, so as printed): after Avril's tall French-Canadian mother died when Avril was eight and her potato-farmer father disappeared "on business," he returned to the L'Islet Province farm with a new American-widow bride, Elizabeth Tavis — in the Vermont wedding photo "almost certainly a dwarf" (achondroplastic: huge square head, stunted arms, homodontic smile) — bringing with her an infant son, Charles, whose own father was "a ne'er-do-well killed in a freak accident playing competitive darts in a Brattleboro tavern" just as Mrs. Tavis went into labor with... (Orin's chronology is tangled). This makes Tavis Avril's step-relation. The novel states the relation FOUR incompatible ways and resolves none: "my mother's half-brother" (Hal, scene 001) and "maternal half-uncle" (102); "her adoptive brother" (013) / "Hal's mother's adoptive brother" (102) / "either Mrs. Incandenza's half-brother or adoptive brother, depending on the version" (026); "half-brother-in-law" (020); and Hal's flat "Charles Tavis is probably not related to the Moms by actual blood" (170). Record all variants as written.