The Peacock 507

 "Aaron", says Sheila rather sharply, "Could you please explain to us what you are about?"

"With pleasure, Sheila.  I have been writing all of you, in two novels.  You were the protagonist in my first effort, called Thirteen Crucifixions.  Shall I begin by telling us all about your two husbands?

"Pray tell", she says drily.

"Your first husband was Frank Watson.  You were high school sweethearts, and in 1960 he married you in order to hide his homosexuality.  You purchased a big house together, on Napier Street in East Vancouver, near Victoria Drive.  you had three children together, Michael here being the first, born in 1962, born in April.  Ares.  you had two more kids, Jason and Suzanne.  Your husband was a sales rep for an international chemical company and was often on long business trips, really dirty holidays, so you basically raised your kids without much assistance.  You went to university, got a degree in social work, and with your childhood friend, Madge, opened a drop in centre for people with social and mental health issues.  You also took in refugees from Chile and other Latin American countries.  During the late eighties, Frank died from AIDS caught from a rent boy, and he died at home in your presence on Christmas Day.  Bill was your second husband.  You ran a coffee shop diner together.  He was a lot younger than you, and had severe mental health problems, tried to kill you, and you divorced.  He also enjoyed a rapid recovery and a lot of his illness appeared to be involved with your house, which was very strangely haunted by spirits of old Atlantis, of which the tree bearing golden apples in your garden was a remnant.

"Would you like me to tell you more?"

"In other words, Aaron", says Glen.  "We are your invention."

"No  I'm just a fly on the wall.  And really, you, Glen, of all people, should know this, because we were actually friends when we were both young men living in Toronto."

"Glen stares at Aaron rather stupidly.  Then he says, "And when you lived in that basement apartment on East Fourteenth in the eighties.  and then in 2000 you lived in that room with all the windows and you were painting those beautiful birds..."