The Peacock 1016

 Carl has just served us up some grilled cheese sandwiches, and they are delicious.  He has used some of the old English cheddar we bought the other day.  No one has said much of anything since we got out of the van.

"I thought you were taking the van in for servicing today?" says Francois.

"It can wait till tomorrow.  I have to get back to work on my article about Amanda."

"How far along are you?" say I

"I would say, near the middle of the beginning.  She is quite a fascinating study."

"How so?"

"Well, she had a daughter by her boyfriend, then met this israeli guy here and they went with him back to Israel for ten years, after which she returned to Canada, gave birth to Tristan, leavig her israeli hubby behind..."

"Are you doing interviews with her?" say I.

"Mostly we're doing emails"...

The Peacock 1015

 It was actually that same day that Greta caught us on the bed together.  We weren't having sex, this has never happened between Erik and me.  But we were both dozing side by side, fully clothed on top of the bed, Erik cuddling with me like a very trusting and very innocent child.  I don't know what Greta must have been thinking.  The next morning, while I was still on top of the bed sleeping, greta was gone.  Today when we are on Skype, I am going to ask him about it.  Well, I'm going to try.  Apparently, their mother was just about to pass away, and Greta wanted to conclude arrangements between us.  She had left on the table a document, signing over to me entirely the apartment, already completely paid for.  At least if I sell it now I can get full equity and that could come very close to a cool million.  And I can expect another five million on the sale of the house, which I am still not ready to sell.  The equity from the apartment can pay the annual property taxes as well as keep me alive otherwise....

The Peacock 1014

 No one at the team knows that I have stopped taking my meds.  Not in the last three weeks.  That is why I  have made so much progress in one short week.  Next week, if I can still hold my own I am going to tell Doctor Chisholm, no more meds.  I still have to tell Carl and Francois, but not yet.  Especially as things are moving so fast with us, I have to keep some things to myself, for myself, and only and exclusively for myself.  Carl's idea of unconditional openness and sharing is just way too much beefsteak too soon.  And I'm vegetarian, sort of. But even with my wild and unfettered emotions these days I finally feel fully myself.  Fully me.  And if I can negotiate this without doing anything particularly stupid, but this has been so intense and I want a break from intensity.  At least I'm sleeping well, much to my surprise, because Dr. Chisholm had warned me that no pills could cost me several good nights.

As we leave Burnaby Carl says, "Are you back on your phone again, Chris?"

"I haven't taken it out of my pocket since we left the café."

"You haven't been sleeping?"

"Bright eyed and bushy tailed.

"And still breathing."

"Yes, I suppose you could say I am still breathing..."

The Peacock 1013

 They sent me home from hospital with pills and a scheduled appointment with the mental health team.  Poor Erik.  While coping with his mother's coming demise, and his apparent inability to fly off to Sweden to see her and his sister (I later learned from him that Greta had ordered him to stay behind, to mind me), he became a constant presence with me.  Only to sleep or use the bathroom would he leave my side.  And then, one day, it occurred to me that here I was, swallowed up in self-pity over my mental illness, and my sense of absolute failure as a husband, and as a man.  And then, one day, I asked Erik about his Mom.  He had been on Skype with her the other day, but seemed very stoic about everything.  And then, as we were sitting at the breakfast table, facing me, his sister in young male form, but with warm brown eyes instead of cold impaling blue eyes, and then he went pale, began to shake, began to shudder, to tremble, and suddenly he was crying, and he sat there in front of his coffee, a weeping whimpering, streaming mess, and then I pulled my chair over next to him, and put my arms around him, and he let me hold him and go on holding him as he wept like he had never wept before.  and that was when my recovery began....

The Peacock 1012

 It was being married to Greta that triggered everything.  The third and last time we attempted sex.  It was going to be a failure.  She had initiated, once again, but I think more out of a sense of clinical curiosity.  That was how it was for her.  She looked at everyone and everything with that same cold, detached unwavering pale blue eyed gaze, as though the world for her was all contained in a petri dish.  I started crying, and continued crying like a baby, seated naked on top of the bed while she got dressed and left the room.  She went away and was gone for three days before I got a text from her in Sweden.  She had apparently gone first to a hotel here, then booked her flight and left.  Erik tried to be supportive, but mostly simply sat with me as I either cried or simply went so far into myself that nothing could retrieve me.  On my request, because I was feeling suicidal, he called 911.  He, as well as Dad, visited me every day I was in hospital for three weeks.  They got me on medications and when I came home I was feeling a lot calmer.  Dad wanted me to come home and stay with him, but I felt responsible for Erik, being alone without his sister.  When she returned a couple of months later, that was when she caught us both on the bed together, fully clothed, but sitll suspicious....

The Peacock 1011

 The ride back is quiet and uneventful.  We are decidedly avoiding conversation, all three of us for now.  no one knows what to do about the house and Carl has not mentioned anything further.  Neither have I told anyone yet that I am now unemployed.  I have an appointment for next week with the psychiatrist at the mental health team.  I called them in the café while I was in the washroom.  No one here knows anything about this, that I am a certified mental health patient.  Though I'm sure that, given some of my behaviour, they wouldn't find the idea to be at all far -fetched.  The thing is, except for that one period of three weeks of hospitalization I have been able to fake it, keeping my job, and my very limited social circle.  And now this.  Unemployed.  This big empty space waiting before me, but what is that empty space I am stepping into going to be for me? An open door that will lead me into new directions, experiences and adventures, or one gaping maw that will swallow me in a single gulp.  Maybe both?  I can talk to Erik about this, because he was living with us when I was in hospital.  He alone knows, and I'm still not sure how safe I should feel around Carl or Francois.  They will be okay but we have only known each other for one week.  And now we three have become inseparable....

The Peacock 1010

 "Who was that?" says Carl, looking up from his phone.

"Erik."

"Is he here?"

"He's on his way to his quarantine."

"Were you texting him in the back seat all the way here?"

"No."

"He was looking at porn", says Francois smirking.

"Oh you wish!"

"How is your ex brother-in-law."

"Not feeling his best.  He thinks he might have covid."

"The quarantine is just as well, then", says Carl.  "So, what were you reading on your phone in the van?"

"Chelsea's blog, when her mother had Alzheimer's.

"I imagine she's passed on."

"And it turns out she's a sex writer."

"No way!

Here  nom de plume is, get this, Geraldine Bang-Bang

"Oh my God", says François.

"And to think we're sharing her pussy with her", says Carl, and we all melt down in dumb male convulsive laughter.