The bond with Avril — adjacent bedrooms, "unrelated but extremely close"

pivotal · standing

• When: standing (their cohabitation at HmH, YTSDB-YDAU)
• What: Tavis and Avril occupy separate but adjacent second-floor HmH bedrooms, "pretty much the Dynamic Duo of compulsion," sleeping between them about as much as one insomniac (scene 102). They "have never represented themselves as anything other than unrelated but extremely close" (170). At the late HmH suppers Tavis "clears the table and loads the dishwasher, since he didn't cook," and "always drops at least one plate out in the kitchen and then bellows"; the mounted machete over the china-case "has stopped really being a joke" (053). Avril, per Mario, "laughs at C.T. way more than she laughed at Himself" and seems happier (010); she leans on Tavis's support for her parenting decisions and shares her phobias' management with him (013); Hal imagines their sex as "frenetic and weary," Tavis "never once shutting up" (179). The close-bond is stated warmly, insinuated darkly (Orin), and never pinned.