The specialist we’d moved so far to see had taken one visit and one vial of blood to diagnose what all my previous doctors hadn’t been able to. To be fair, at the time “grade schooler” and “HIV positive” weren’t words you’d normally associate. It was always “the gays,” as my Dad called us, or drug addicts. Prostitutes, maybe. Not Sheriff’s kids. Not Sheriff’s wives.
After I was diagnosed, Dad and Mom both got tested. When she tested positive, and he didn’t, I watched my father lose his mind.
I remembered that night so clearly. The drive home from the doctors’ office was silent. My father drove, his face pale in the evening light. The heat was stifling, the air conditioner in his car blowing full force, but seemingly unable to make a dent in the temperature.
When we got home and out of the car, Mom tried to talk to Dad.
“Will…” she began.
“No! Not here,” he’d whispered furiously. “Get in the house.”
My mom’s eyes had leapt to mine as he stalked inside and she reached out and grabbed my hand with hers, pulling me toward her as we entered the kitchen.
“Mom?” I’d said, my voice questioning. She closed the door behind us and I sat down in one of the kitchen chairs, nausea and fatigue draining me.
“It’s okay, Nicki. Just... Don’t rile him up. Get upstairs and go to sleep,” she ordered.
I nodded, frightened by the tension between my parents. I knew the doctor had told my mom she had the same disease I did. What I couldn’t understand why my dad was so angry about it. The doctor had insisted that he thought it was treatable and would someday be curable.
“There are new discoveries being made every day,” he’d told my parents as we sat in his office. “I believe strongly that there will eventually be a cure for this disease, maybe even a vaccine. The key is going to be keeping your wife and son alive until we find it.”
I hadn’t really wrapped my mind around the fact that I had a disease that could, and probably would, someday kill me. Despite the doctor insisting it was treatable, my father had been acting like I’d already died. He’d barely spoken to me in the previous weeks, and whenever I felt his eyes on me, I’d look up only to see pure rage on his face.
“It’ll be okay, baby,” my mom said, hugging me fiercely.
When she backed away, I saw tears were slowly trickling from the corners of her eyes. She’d worn her hair down that day, her red curls dark and limp in the humid heat. For the first time, I realized that I was almost as tall as she was. She had always been my protector, my advocate. Now she looked… small. Frightened. Like the diagnosis had diminished her, somehow. She tried to smile at me and tucked a stray strand of hair behind my ear.
“Nicki, I am so sorry,” she whispered, her voice sounding ragged and low.
“Mom, it’s not your fault,” I answered. “It… it’s a virus. It just is.”
She shook her head and I saw her swipe her palm across her face.
“It is my fault… it really is…” she cried. “I… I did something I’m not proud of. I think that’s how I got sick. Then I gave it to you… My baby…”
I didn’t even know why I was crying really, but we cried together, huddled together in the kitchen, the dying sunlight painting the walls.
“Nicki, I’m so proud of you. You are an amazing young man, and I want you to know how…how very much I love you. You are going to do such amazing things with your life,” she whispered.
“Mom, why is Dad so upset?” I asked. “I don’t understand… It’s not your fault. Neither of us did anything wrong! It’s an illness!”
“Tell him, Har,” I heard my father bark from the doorway, a beer in his hand. We hadn’t heard him come back into the kitchen and my mother and I both jumped.
He’d unbuttoned his shirt and abandoned his jacket somewhere in the darkened house. He usually put his gun in his gun safe as soon as he got home, so I figured that was where he’d gone. His face was like stone and his eyes looked half-dead as he glared at my mother and me. He took another sip of his drink, his eyes never leaving us.
“T-tell me what?” I asked, looking from him to my Mom, and back, confusion flooding me. I was still in shock that my mom had this disease, that we were both probably going to die from it, someday. My mother just shook her head.
“Tellhim, Harley!” my father demanded.
“Will, don’t do this…” She begged tiredly, her head down, her fingers gripping tightly to the back of her neck, her long red hair tangling in her face.
He strode into the kitchen and slammed his beer on the table, jerking my mother’s slighter frame away from me and to her feet. He dragged her close, eyes gleaming with anger, he shook her back and forth like a rag doll.
“Tellhim, Harley! Tell him, orIfucking will!” he screamed at her, spittle spraying out of his mouth and landing on her face.
“Dad! Stop! You’re hurting her!” I yelled, trying to get his attention.
“Please, Will…” she begged. The salty tears made her hair stick to her face like ribbons of blood.
