Broken (12 page)

My heart almost stopped. This couldn't be good.
"Okay. We will be there as soon as possible."

With a
heavily beating heart I drove home to pick up Heather and take
 
her to Dr.
Harris’
office. She was feeling a little better I was happy to determine. She was even
smiling and talking animatedly with the secretary at Dr. Harris's office as we
entered. She had lost a lot of weight I realized with worry as I took off her
long coat.

"The doctor can see you right away," the
secretary said. "Just go in."

To the day I die I shall never forget the look on Dr.
Harris' face when we entered his office. The sadness in his brown eyes, the
downward facing mouth, the long pauses he made between the words before he
finally said what he was about to tell us.

"Heather," he said and exhaled deeply.

She sat nervously at the edge of the chair. For once
she actually seemed sober, but I couldn't tell half of the time anymore. She
had become so good at hiding it for me that I suspected her to be somewhat
sedated most of the time anyway.

The doctor paused too long. My heart was hammering in
my chest. Heather nodded to show him she was listening. Every now and then she
looked at me with a scared look in her eyes. Sedated or not she knew this was
serious. I smiled and put my hand in hers. We hadn't held hands in many years.
I squeezed hers hoping it would bring her some comfort knowing I was there.
Knowing I would be there for her no matter what.

The doctor took off his glasses and rubbed his
forehead. "I guess there is no easy way to say this," he said.
"Especially to people you know so well."

"Is it about my cough?" Heather asked.
"I know it’s bad. And the fever as well. But I do feel better today, I
really do. I haven't been good to myself lately. I guess my body has trouble
coping with it all. I will make sure and be better at ...”

The doctor lifted his hand to stop her. "I am
afraid it is a little more complicated than that," he said heavily.

"What is it, doctor? Just tell us," I said.

"I had my suspicions when you were here the first
time, Heather. When I first heard your cough, but I didn't want to believe it.
I ran some tests and got the answers today."

"So you didn't know yesterday when I was in
here?" Heather asked.

"No. My suspicion grew stronger once you told me
the fever and cough was back and this morning when I received the results what
I feared the most was confirmed."

I swallowed hard and held Heather's hand tight in
mine.

"I am afraid you have PCP," he said.
"That's why you're coughing."

My heart stopped instantly. The shock made me let go
of Heather's hand. "PCP?” I asked. "But that ... but that only
..."

The doctor nodded with his eyes closed. Then he opened
them and looked at Heather. "PCP is a fungal infection of the lungs. The
symptoms include fever, a non-productive cough, shortness of breath, weight
loss and night sweats. The fungus can invade other organs such as the liver,
spleen and kidney, but only in a minority of cases."

"But are you telling me that ..." I began
but the doctor interrupted me.

"Yes. Yes I am afraid that I am. PCP is commonly
associated with AIDS, yes."

The shock knocked the air out of me. "AIDS? But
how ... how is that possible?" My voice was strident.

I looked at Heather. She was frozen, merely staring at
the doctor while tears were rolling down her cheeks.

"As I said I had my suspicions since I had seen
this kind of lung infection once before in a patient, so I took a blood-sample
and had them run a HIV test." The doctor pulled out a piece of paper from
Heather's file and put it on the desk in front of us.

Heather looked at it and then back at the doctor
waiting for an explanation.

"It came back positive. I am so sorry."

Heather's hands were shaking. I had a hard time
breathing. This couldn't be. How could it? So many questions, so many things I
didn't understand.

"Am I going to die?" Heather asked.

I held my breath as I turned and looked at the doctor.
He swallowed hard. Then he took out another piece of paper from the journal.
"Your CD4 cells are lower than 200," he said and showed me the number
on the paper from the laboratory.

"CD4?" Heather said shrieking. "What
does that even mean?"

I reached for her hand but she didn't let me take it.
I looked at her while I spoke. I felt like screaming. Explaining this to my
wife had to be the most difficult situation in my life. "It means your
immune system is not working right and you might get all kinds of infections.
Like the lung infection you have now and the rash. Things that people normally
don't get, if they have a normal immune system working as it should," I
said. I sighed again. "It also means you have full-fledged AIDS."

"So am I going to die or what? Why won't anyone
answer me that? How long do I have? Please just tell me I have more time."

I looked at the doctor. He closed his eyes and rubbed
his face again.

"No one knows," I said. "But one of
these infections might ... kill you eventually." I felt tears piling up in
my eyes and I let them out. No reason to keep them back any longer. The mother
of my child was sick, my wife was very, very sick.

"Isn't there anything I can take? Can't I be
treated for this?" She asked.

The doctor nodded. "We will begin a treatment
with AZT right away. But I have to advise you to start putting your finances in
order, if you don't have a will, then consider making one and start making
arrangements for your funeral.

Heather froze again. She was paler than ever.
"What? Make arrangements for what?"

The doctor nodded but didn't repeat his statement. It
was something he had to say, I knew that. In reality Heather could have
anything from a few months to several years left. The doctor didn't know but he
had to advise people to make their final arrangements in case it happened sooner
than expected.

"What about that AZT. Can't that help me?"
Heather was crying hysterically now. Tears were rolling down her cheeks. I
moved my chair closer to hers and put my arm around her shoulder. She pushed it
away. "I don't need this now, Chris," she hissed. "I don't want
your pity."

I exhaled deeply and moved away from her.

"AZT is still very new, but clinical trials have
shown it to be effective in many cases. Although AZT does not cure AIDS, it
does slow the multiplication of the virus. That is all we can do now. I have to
tell you that it does have some severe side effects; Anemia, heartburn,
headaches, mood elevation, occasional numbness of the hands and feet,
out-of-mind experiences, nausea, insomnia, and developed neuropathy, which has
been known to create a deterioration of the nervous system. Also a lot of
patients with AIDS suffer from anxiety attacks and severe depressions."

Heather scoffed. "Is that what I have to look
forward to? Is that it for me? Unbearable sickness the rest of my life?"

"I am afraid so, Heather." Dr. Harris sighed
again. Then he looked at me. "But you also both know that this means we
need to have you tested as well, Chris. Have you had any symptoms? Loss of
appetite? Night sweats? Fever? Trouble sleeping? Any myalgia, muscle pain? Skin
rashes?"

I swallowed hard. I had had all of these, but not for
the reason the doctor thought. How was I supposed to explain that?

"You've had most of that," Heather suddenly
said holding a hand to cover her mouth. "You hardly sleep anymore. Not in
more than a month. You've had a fever at night remember? That night your eyes
were all glowing from the fever. And you barely eat anything. Sarah told me
yesterday that she was concerned about you because you didn't eat anything. Oh
my God. I’ve given this to you, haven't I?"

I turned my head and looked at her. "What do you
mean you’ve given it to me?" My stomach turned into a knot. The
realization of what she had just told me hurt so bad it almost knocked me out.
"You know where you got it from, don't you?" My blood was boiling
with anger. It was like I had been living in a daze for years and finally saw
everything clearly. The truth hit me like a hammer hit a nail. I was suddenly
very much awake and saw everything in a burning clear light. I suspected when
she came home with another man's scent on her, hell I might even have known it
but refused to see it, refused to believe that she would do this to me, to our
family, to William.

"You slept with someone else, didn't you?" I
stood up feeling the blood rush through my veins. I held it back as much as I
could. The anger, the rage, the years of repressed wrath caused by Heather's
constant refusal to act like the mother and wife she was. Her insistence that
became almost a quest to destroy everything I worked to build up. Destroy me
and the family I thought we were. A quest she had now finally completed.
"You cheated on me with someone who gave you ... who gave you this. Didn't
you!"

Heather cowered in her chair. Dr. Harris searched his
papers frantically. "I’ll just call for my nurse and she'll take that
blood sample and then you can both be out of here to discuss ... whatever you
need to sort out." He cleared his throat and called his nurse. I was so
angry I felt the blood spurt out of my veins when she extracted the sample from
my arm.

Chapter 15

"Who was he?"

The silence in the car on the way back to the house
had been simply unbearable. I waited for the anger to settle a little, but it
hadn't happened. It felt awful to be angry at someone who just had a death
sentence read to them, but I couldn't control it. I was unable to hold it back
any longer. I had to know.

Heather opened her bag, pulled out a small bottle and
emptied it in one gulp. "I want to know who he was," I said. "I
deserve to know. We had sex the day right after the charity, remember? If I
have to die from this as well, then at least tell me who he was."

Heather avoided my eyes and glanced out the window.

I hit my hand hard on the steering wheel. "Tell
me, Goddammit!"

Heather found a bottle of pills and opened it. Her
hands were trembling almost causing her to miss her mouth when she ate the
handful.

Then she sighed. "I don't know."

"What?" I couldn't believe it. "What do
you mean you don't know?"

"It could have been anybody."

"What are you telling me Heather? There was more
than one?"

She shrugged. "Sure. I know it's pathetic, but
that's just me again being pathetic. You don't have to tell me. I know what I
have become. I am not proud of it."

"So what you're telling me is that you've been
having sex with several men?"

"Yes Chris. That is what I am telling you. I have
been drunk, sedated by my pills going to clubs and being picked up by men and
having unprotected sex with them."

"So you don't even know when this happened to
you? When you got this?"

"No, I don't."

"But why Heather? Why? You have such a great
life. We had such a wonderful life. You have everything you'd ever need, why
would you want to ruin all that?"

I stopped the car in the driveway in front of the
house and turned off the engine. I exhaled deeply and hid my face in my hands.
I couldn't believe this was happening to us, to me and to William.

"Did I Chris?" Heather asked and opened the
door. "Did I really have everything I needed?"

 
"You're damn right you had
everything!" I slammed the door as I jumped out of the car following her.
Heather stared at me with resentment as our eyes met in the driveway. Then she
turned and walked towards the house. I grabbed her arm and forced her to look
at me. "
We
had everything!" I yelled
to her face. "Look around you. I tried to give you everything. The house
you wanted, the cars you wanted, dresses that costs more than cars, jewelry fit
for a European queen - even that vulgarly expensive couch in the living room
that we never even use but you said we just had to have! I even made sure you
had nannies taking care of our son so you wouldn't be overburdened. What more
could you have possibly wanted?"