She nodded yes and got out, trying not to struggle. A week away from the gym had taken its toll. She closed the door and looked down through the window, waving a little good-bye.
He waved back at her, but didn’t take off until she was inside.
So that was that
. Pam felt liberated walking up to her front door. She wasn’t ready to be in a relationship, AIDS or no AIDS. She wanted to be alone, to process her life and what had been revealed to her. Up to this point, nothing
really had been
done
to her short of lies and betrayal. Now, the virus that was attacking her body, that was real. It was something horrible that was tangible. Jack had given this to her.
Where did it came from originally? Oh God, what a horrible thought
. She thought of Harold or Bernice. She wasn’t about to suggest to Bernice to get tested for HIV. So she would never know. She bent over to pick a weed growing out of the gravel sidewalk. She would call the gardener today; he had been slacking off since Jack died.
Out of nowhere the thought came,
How was Jack’s business?
A meeting with Sandra and Peter might be due as well. They certainly were not including her in the loop. She unlocked the door to her house and didn’t turn around one last time to wave good-bye to Andy. She could hear the car slowly pull away from the curb. He should have known better than to ask a woman whose husband had died two weeks prior to go for coffee. It wasn’t her fault. She felt released from guilt over Andy.
Her house smelled musty, closed in. It was Wednesday.
Had the cleaning ladies come on Tuesday?
She didn’t think so.
Or was that why I had gotten up to unlock the door? And then fainted? Could I have been there on the floor all night?
Her answering machine message light was beeping away, evidence of many missed calls and messages left. She thought, perhaps, she shouldn’t be home alone today, but having her family there, Sandra, her mother, it would just be too overwhelming. She would shower and do her hair and makeup, get out of this dirty sweat suit.
Immediately afterward, she felt better than she had in weeks. She remembered the doctor and nurses reminding her to drink plenty of fluids. She went into her kitchen
pantry and found six-packs of Gatorade and put one of them in the refrigerator.
What is my routine, anyway?
She knew she had one, a meager one, but it was almost a liturgy. It would be the way she would continue to live her life, boring and self-absorbed, alone.
M
arie tried to call her sister at the hospital, only to find out she had been discharged.
To whom and to what? An empty house?
She was going to finish what she had to do at work, and then if she could get away she would go to Babylon. The new members of the staff where experienced self-starters and were capable of working without her breathing down their necks. Pam shouldn’t be home alone. She tried calling again and still no answer. She debated calling Sandra but decided against it.
What could that snake tell me? That my sister is sick? No fucking kidding!
When Sandra called her after calling the ambulance, Sandra was so condescending that Marie thought she might be blaming her for Pam being unconscious.
“Did you notice anything unusual when you talked to Pam?” Sandra asked. “I find it difficult to believe that she sounded normal.”
Marie ignored her and asked for details.
“I don’t know anything,” Sandra replied. “I found her out cold on the hallway floor and then called 911. I just hope we got her help in time.”
Sandra’s comments resonated in Marie’s head; she wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. This time, she would go to her sister whether she needed her or not.
While Pam was settling in at home, Sandra was headed to her obstetrician’s office to have a second blood test. HIV. It was such a loaded acronym that hearing it yesterday and repeating it through the night and over and over in her head had made her ill. Well past morning sickness now for at least a month, she awoke retching first thing that morning. She had never been so frightened in her entire life. The doctor said it meant nothing. The test was probably a false positive, and they would solve the mystery by taking more blood that morning, and by the afternoon, have an answer for her. No one had asked her yet if she had unprotected sex, if she shared needles, or if she had a high-risk lifestyle. What did that mean? Working like a demon day after day, barely having a social life, and then a weekly meeting with the man of her dreams, who just happened to be married and now, it would appear, was also a child abuser, whoremonger, or worse? For a split second, she thought she might know what Pam had been going through for the past weeks—the betrayal, the total lack of respect, the horror that had been Jack. As the cab pulled up to her stop, she thought of Marie and Pam.
She got out of the cab and threw some money down for the tip and the fare. The cab sped off. She stood on the curb, petrified to take that next step, to walk through the door and face her doctor. Traffic was horrible, cars whizzing by, cabs narrowly missing pedestrians; she was taking her life standing there.
Go do it
. She got up on the sidewalk and went to the door of the office.
She was the only patient in the waiting room, but the receptionist refused to make eye contact with her and was
short and curt. She pointed to a seat and told her to sit down; the nurse would be with her in a minute.
The door to a back room opened, and a smiling nurse said, “Follow me.”
It took less than two minutes to draw the blood.
“The doctor will have the results after lunch, and if there is anything to hear, she’ll call you. I doubt it, though.” She patted Sandra on the back.
Sandra had to control the urge to swing around and throw the offending hand off her body.
Why do you doubt it?
she wanted to ask.
Don’t I look like someone who might have HIV?
Sandra could feel the irrational outburst forming in the back of her throat, and unable to make eye contact, she simply said, “Thank you,” and left the room quickly.
She decided to go across town and go back home; she wasn’t going to work today. In spite of rush hour, she got a cab right away. It was already hot, and the cab smelled like body odor. Tears were near the surface, and she fought them and took control of her body. She would not decompensate in the back of a stinking cab. The streets of the East Side of Manhattan flew by as the driver broke every traffic rule. Sandra reached behind her and found her seat belt. The Pakistani man looked at her in his rearview mirror when he heard the click and gave the gas pedal an extra push. Sandra screamed at him.
“My boyfriend is a cop, and I’ll call him right now if you don’t slow this damn cab down!”
“I’m not driving fast,” he argued.
“SLOW DOWN!” she yodeled. And she got her phone out with a sweeping gesture, sitting forward and slamming it up against the glass partition, but not touching
the filthy thing with her hands. “And I am warning all my friends to stay away from your filthy cab! HELP!” She screamed.
The driver slowed down.
She told him to stop in front of the grocery store on Broadway; under no condition would she allow him to see where she lived. She threw money down on the backseat and slammed the door. She held her phone up so he could see it. “I’ve got your number!” she yelled.
“Someone got up on the wrong side of the bed,” a woman whispered as they passed by.
“I wish I had the courage to tell a cabbie off,” her companion replied.
Sandra went into the store and got a few things to get her through the rest of the week. She couldn’t stop eating. She had to go on living because of the baby. The four-block walk home was grueling, the heat, the worry.
It is probably for nothing
kept going through her mind.
But was it?
Jack could have easily given her something, knowing his history.
After she reached her apartment and let herself in, she finally exploded, throwing her purse across the sitting area. She was so angry at Jack. “Now I can waste a day waiting for the doctor to call me. Thanks!” she yelled at the ceiling. “Thanks, Jack! You asshole!” The still, small voice said to Sandra,
He can’t hear you
. “Well then, thank you, God! This is just what I needed!”
She went into her bedroom to change from work clothes into her spandex. She would get a jump start on her housekeeping for the weekend.
I sure as hell am not going to the beach. NO WAY!
And then she thought of Pam.
Gentle,
sweet, forgiving Pam
. She immediately calmed down. Maybe she better give her a call, make sure she was okay.
She got her cell phone out of her purse and keyed in the hospital number. The operator told her Pam had been discharged.
Well, that is good!
Dialing Pam’s house number, she thought,
She must not be too ill if she was sent home already
.
“Hello?” was the timid whisper of a greeting.
Sandra’s heart sunk. “Pam? It’s Sandra. How are you?”
Pam wanted to tell Sandra the truth, but over the phone? Maybe not. “I’m better! Thank you for asking.” Pam said and remembered how she ended up in the hospital. “By the way, thank you for what you did for me yesterday. What would have happened to me if you hadn’t come?”
You would have probably been fine, just sore from lying on the floor
. She gave a simple “you’re welcome” instead.
“So what do you think about this weekend?” Pam asked.
Sandra thought she might be able to tolerate a day there, but not more if Marie was coming; Marie was getting on her nerves lately. “I think I can come. Will Marie be there? The three of us haven’t been together in quite a while!” she added, hoping the statement hid the real reason she was asking.
“I’m going to ask her today. So we’ll talk later?” Making small talk was exhausting her. Not exploding with facts about AIDS, warning Sandra, apologizing to her. She had decided she wanted to tell both Marie and Sandra together. She had to tell her family, her mother, and children. But she was not telling Andy. They hadn’t exchanged
any bodily fluids that she could remember, limiting their kissing to closed-mouth pecks. She’d check with Dr. Toms. Suddenly overcome with fear and worry, Pam didn’t want to talk on the phone anymore. “I’m so tired! So good-bye for now.”
“Oh, I forgot already that you are ill! Yes, we will talk later. Good-bye, Pam,” Sandra said and hung up. She stood at the dining table and looked out her window. There weren’t many birds lately; they must be finding plenty to eat in the park. She stared at the empty birdfeeder.
Was Pam dismissive with her? Was there something underlying that Sandra was missing?
She thought that Pam was too good to be true and that, one day, the real Pam, the human Pam, would burst out, spewing hatred and unforgiveness all over the place. Sandra caught herself in what was becoming a more frequent inner dialogue, one in which she blamed Pam for her predicament. If Pam had been a better wife, Jack wouldn’t have looked outside of his marriage for companionship. If Pam hadn’t been so kind, she could vent her anger at Jack against her. And then came the about-face; schizophrenically, Sandra covered her face with her hands and started crying. It was no one’s fault. The affair just happened. She was to blame if anyone was, because she slept with a married man. Finally, her inner voice said,
GIVE IT A REST
.
She got busy cleaning up, trying not to look at the phone. But when she ran the vacuum, she picked up the receiver and carried it in her pocket. At 1:00, she stopped for lunch. She was making a sandwich when the phone rang. Her heart started pounding against the wall of her
chest. The caller ID said it was the doctor. She reluctantly answered it, pressing the talk button.
“The results of your last test are in, Sandra. It was positive for HIV.” She didn’t say anything else for a moment. “There is a doctor here in the building—Dr. Mathur—who specializes in treating HIV and AIDS patients who are pregnant. Can you see him tomorrow? Taking antiretroviral drugs will help keep you and the baby safe.”
“I can see him. I hardly know what to say. Should I start screaming now or after we hang up?”
“Sandra, I promise you it isn’t as lethal as it sounds anymore, if you take care of yourself. You are healthy and young, and that is great start. See Dr. Mathur as soon as possible, okay? He’ll give you the latest information. I would like to continue to be your primary, though. We will see you weekly, if you are agreeable to it.” Sandra choked back tears. She had been fully ready to be judged.
“I’ll call him as soon as we hang up.”
“Good-bye, then, Sandra. I’ll see you next week, okay? Call the office after two, when the receptionist gets back from lunch, and make an appointment. We’ll work through this together.”
They said good-bye.
Sandra sat at her dining table and put her head down and cried. She was so alone. Thank God her parents were dead. She would never be able to tell her sister, who didn’t know about the baby, either.
Tom. He had kissed her full on an open mouth. She would have to tell him. Lowering her head to the table again, she wept for the embarrassment of it, for the futility
of the relationship she thought they might have had. She had just given it a death sentence with the diagnosis of HIV.
Fucking Jack!
But it was her fault as well. She was reaping the fruit of sleeping with a married man.
Boy did he ever not fit the mold! Jack, HIV positive!