“So.” Her voice was thick with dread. She knew what was coming, and so did I. I braced myself and asked the question.
“So, are you HIV-positive, or not?”
She took a deep breath. “I’m…not.”
Boom. There it was. Good news, bad news, all in one. She didn’t have AIDS; she was going to live. And she’d lied to me.
“Okay,” I said, no big deal, as though she’d just told me she’d lost her cell phone. “And you’ve always known you weren’t positive.”
“Well…” Her voice got high and dodgy. “I mean, one time last year, I got this false positive, and I thought I was positive for a week or so, but then they retested me, and…”
I clamped my lips shut. She was lying again, and I didn’t want to hear another lie. “Okay,” I repeated. “So you didn’t tell us the truth.”
“I…” Her high voice broke, and she exhaled. The next word came out low. “No.”
“Okay.” I breathed in and out, in and out. “Okay.”
One thing at a time—she wasn’t going to die. Not this week, not next week, not next month, not next year. She’s going to make it to Disney World! I thought, delirious. She was going to live! She’d be able to get a room and apply for school and work at a dog spa, write her book and ride her skateboard, do whatever she wanted to do. I laughed, relieved. “Well, so you don’t have AIDS. That’s good. I’m really glad about that.”
“Me too,” she said, high-voiced and uncertain. Waiting for the other shoe to drop, or hit her across the face.
“So…” I almost didn’t want to ask the next question, didn’t want to ruin the high of hearing that she wasn’t fatally ill. “Why did you say you did?”
Her breath left her in a heavy sigh, her voice pained. “I don’t know. I don’t know why I said I was positive. It just…came out, and then once I said it, I couldn’t take it back. I wanted to tell you guys so many times. I wanted to tell you right away, but I was afraid you’d hate me for it, and you wouldn’t be my friend anymore. And then, it’s like, I almost believed it, you know? Because I kept getting real sick, and I started to think maybe it was true—like maybe somehow God had punished me for lying by giving me AIDS.”
I shut my eyes. I remembered junior high, when I was a habitual liar, lying compulsively to everyone, lying half the time before I realized what was coming out of my mouth. I’d learned to become a method liar, to have a full Sensurround story behind every lie, to be able to see every detail, hear every word, until I could have passed a polygraph; that’s how much I believed myself. I understood lies you couldn’t tell from reality anymore. I understood lies that got out of control, that stacked up, necessitating more lies. I knew that regret, Why did I say that in the first place? I wish I could take it back. When I was in my freshman year of high school, and still a virgin, I told my best friend, Karlina, that I was pregnant by a handsome older teenager I’d seen in our neighborhood—I even pointed him out to her on the street. He wants me to keep it, I told her. But I don’t know. I had to lie for weeks on that one, months; had to describe the abortion clinic my mom took me to, and how I got stitches from the operation. Later, I discovered that you don’t get stitches from an abortion. Karlina had known all along.
“I understand,” I told her. “I do.”
Bill shook his head from the doorway, still trying to comprehend what was happening. He looked at me, almost an appeal—She didn’t lie, did she? Tell me she didn’t lie about having AIDS—and I shook my head in return. Sorry, pal.
“I’m sorry,” said Sam, almost whispering. “I really am.”
“I understand,” I said again. And then realized I didn’t. I might have lied about getting pregnant, but my belly never swelled, I wasn’t morning sick. I faked it, but Sam wasn’t faking it. A team of doctors had observed her for most of the summer—meningitis, MAC disease, bacterial sepsis, fungemia—she was, as Dr. Rice had said, “legitimately sick.” “But how did you get so sick?”
“I don’t know,” she said, miserable. “I mean, that’s why I’ve been so confused.”
She couldn’t have done this to herself, said Dr. Rice. But the Internet told me something else. Munchausen’s sufferers did it all the time—an injection of yeast or powdered cleanser; some fecal E. coli in her IV line—maybe she could have. “Well, now maybe the doctors will be able to figure it out, and you can really get well.”
Sam was quiet, except for her quick, shallow breaths. I listened to her gather her thoughts, waited silently for her to speak. When she did, there was fear in her voice. “You must be real mad at me.”
I laughed. “Well, I think I’m in shock.” Yeah, definitely. I had that spacey, dreamlike feeling; I wanted to shake my head and wake myself up. “And I’m just so happy to hear that you’re not dying of AIDS. I mean, whatever the real problem is, now you’ll be able to get some help for it.”
And I won’t have to sit there and watch anymore, if I don’t want to. That weightless, drifting feeling I had—part of it was relief. I’d been looking for an excuse to pull away from her, and now I had two: She was going to live, so I didn’t have to tend to her every want and need anymore; and she’d lied to me about it, so, shit, I didn’t even have to speak to her again. I could walk away for good, if I wanted, and not felt guilty in the least; whatever promises I’d made to her were effectively annulled. This whole revelation was a real kick in the face, but it did have its upsides.
“I hope so.” Sam breathed heavily into the phone, voice bordering on squeaky. “I’m just…I’m real sorry, Janice. I don’t want you to…I still need you to be my friend.”
I bet she did. This was her worst-case scenario, losing me and Maria. She could break every bone in her body, and she didn’t mind, as long as we were there to sign her casts. But to break our faith in her—that was a fatal blow. “I’m still your friend,” I assured her. “And I’ll call you tomorrow. But right now, it’s getting late, and I need to think about everything we talked about, okay?”
“Okay. But…” Like always, she didn’t want to let me off the phone. “Janice, I really am sorry.”
“I know. And I’ll talk to you tomorrow. All right?” I didn’t wait for a response, just gave my usual sign-off. “Feel better, okay?”
I hung up the phone and turned to Bill. He shook his head at the floor. “No way,” he said.
“Oh my god.” I clapped my hands together in prayer, drew them to my lips. The stunned, dreamlike feeling was dissipating; the shame and the fury were starting to hit. “She fucking lied to me. She lied.”
Bill kept shaking his head, arms folded across his chest. “I’m sorry, babe.”
I shook this off, pffft. Why should he be sorry? I was the one who had screwed everything up; I was the one who’d gone out and dragged home this psychopath, this monster. I’d brought her into our home. With our cats. Anything could have happened—god, I was an idiot! I shouldn’t have been allowed outside without supervision! “Jesus Christ, Bill, she’s a psycho! She’s a complete psycho!”
Bill continued to shake his head. “That’s not who she is. That’s not who I met. That’s not who we went to Coney Island with.”
“That person doesn’t exist.” Everything was whirling around in my head now, all the stories she told me—her family’s meth lab, her mom the hooker, her violent past on the streets—probably all lies. Her name probably wasn’t even Samantha. No, wait—she was on Medicaid; she had a Social Security card and a GED—she had to be using a real Social Security number. So at least we knew the name on the hospital bracelet was real. And her real birthday was April Fool’s Day.
April Fool’s! How perfect. My fist came down on the desk, damn it. And Bill had tried to warn me, months ago. I’d hate to think she was playing you somehow, he’d said, and I’d gotten mad at him. She’s not playing me! How stupid I’d been, what a bleeding-heart liberal dupe. “My god, honey, I’m so sorry. I’m such an idiot.”
“Stop. Don’t blame yourself. It’s her. She�
�s even more fucked up than we thought.”
We. At least he was still in this with me. With Bill, I could get through anything. I sat down on his lap in the chair and felt his arms close around me, comforting me. I held on to him, his firm chest, his strong arms. He was solid, he was real; our love for each other was real. This, at least, was real.
Somehow I managed to get to sleep that night, but I woke up at five in the morning, eyes wide open, heart pounding like I’d been running. Sam had lied to me for four months. About AIDS. And the timing—I told her back in May, on visiting day at the halfway house, that I was going to propose to Bill; not two weeks later, she told me she was diagnosed. I felt like spitting, thinking about the virus I had at the wedding, how I’d almost canceled the honeymoon. What if we hadn’t gone to Bermuda; what if I’d made us stay because she was sick, she was dying? “She really wants you to go on your honeymoon,” Maria had said. “She’s adamant about it.” And lo and behold, she’d hit an upswing, right on schedule; she’d recovered just enough so I could get married and leave town for a week. I guessed I should have been grateful—somehow, she’d been able to give me that.
I thought about the second phone call I’d had with Maria the night before, after talking to Sam and to Bill. She picked up her phone before I even heard it ring. “So, now you know.” Maria was mighty, mighty pissed, she said, but she wasn’t giving up on Sam. “I know she was brought into my life for a reason,” she said. “I just don’t know how to help this girl. I don’t know what to do from here. I think I have to take a week away from the situation. I’m not abandoning her, I’m just…”
Thinking. We were both going to think about it, and we’d talk soon.
The sky was starting to turn umber, the cats stretching and climbing out of bed to see what I was doing awake, and if I had any food for them. I filled their bowls, then sat down at the computer and opened my e-mail. I started writing to Sam.
To: cypherpunk@———.com
Subject: Hey there
So you lied about being sick. Which sucks for everyone, but especially for you. I’ll say the same thing I said to you when I heard you were diagnosed with AIDS—this sucks, but I’m glad we found out, so you can get treatment for whatever your real problem is. Because I want you to have a long, happy life, free of sickness and pain of any sort. I know you must feel right now like your life is over, but it’s not. This is a GOOD thing, that we discovered the real problem, and your life is going to get a lot better from here. Call me when you get this, and we’ll talk some more.
Janice
Bill woke up, and we started our morning routine. He was still in disbelief—maybe there was something we were missing, he said. Maybe there was another explanation for her mysterious illness, besides E. coli in the IV. We kissed good-bye for the day, and he gave me an extra-long hug. “Let me know if you hear anything new,” he said.
I worked as best as I could that day, stopping to check my e-mail every few minutes, waiting for a reply from Sam. I wrote to the friends I’d called over the weekend, gave them the breaking news: So guess who doesn’t have AIDS after all? The replies came quickly and emphatically: What the fuck? That’s crazy! Are you sure? And I’m so sorry, for the both of you.
At lunchtime I ran out to the bank, the copy shop, and the drugstore for my birth control—no kids for me today, thanks. I passed the redhead, slumped behind her battered cup in front of Anthropologie. She looked up as I walked by—maybe I’d buy her some cookies today, or a Snapple, like I had in weeks past. I felt like kicking her.
I walked past the bookstore, where Sam and I had spent so many afternoons. In the window was the Narnia collection I’d bought for her before the honeymoon, something for her and Maria to start reading while I was away. Last I checked, she was up to The Magician’s Nephew. Automatically, I thought of myself at her bedside, starting the next chapter. Oh, maybe tomorrow, we’ll…
Maybe we’ll what, Janice? Maybe we’ll nothing.
I had been wondering what it was going to feel like when she died. Now I felt like I knew.
Back at my desk, it was impossible to concentrate. This was always the part of the day when I’d be mentally preparing to go uptown, to sit by Sam’s bedside, watch her face for signs of pain, or sadness, or fear, or boredom. Staring down the long afternoon without her, I felt eerily weightless, like an astronaut without a planet.
Impulsively, I picked up my phone and called her hospital room. She answered right away. “Hello?”
“Hey, it’s me.” I stopped. Now that she was on the phone, I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t even know why I’d called. Habit, probably. “I miss you.”
“I miss you, too,” she said, her voice so tiny and vulnerable. “I got your e-mail.”
“You want to talk about it sometime?”
“Yeah.”
Her gratitude was audible, and it was just what I needed to hear. Whatever else had changed, she still needed me, and I was still there for her—nobly, unselfishly giving. I was still the awesomest mom in the world, even more awesome than before; I was still caring for Sam, even if it was only for right this second. “Okay. How about I come see you sometime this week?”
“All right.” Now she just sounded stunned. “I…I can’t believe you still want to see me.”
Well, maybe it would just be to say good-bye. But at least I’d say it in person. After everything we’d been through, I needed to look at her one more time.
We hung up and I turned back to my computer, staring blankly at the document on the screen. Bill was going to think I was crazy, calling Sam and offering to visit, when the last thing I’d said to him last night before bed was “I wish she were still dying.” Well, I was crazy; if I hadn’t had adequate proof before, now it was certifiable—I had lost my mind over Samantha Dunleavy.
I sat there at my desk arguing with myself like a hung jury—fuck her, she conned you, cut her off already, don’t be a jerk. But she wasn’t malicious, she was sick. She had a genuine disorder—I’d read about it online. And what did she con me out of, anyway? A month’s rent, which she’d tried to refuse? A trip to Coney Island, which I’d begged her to take? She hadn’t conned me out of my love—I’d loved her even before she got sick. I’d loved her since that first night, when she fixed me with those big, open eyes; since the first time I read her poem. And I still loved her. It hadn’t gone away overnight.
“I don’t know,” I confessed to Bill that night, throwing myself at him the minute he got home, following him around the apartment as he took off his work clothes. “I don’t know what to do. I know I have to take a huge step back, but I don’t want to abandon her right now. I kind of want to see this through. Is that crazy?”
Bill shrugged at me, weary; he hadn’t slept much better than me the night before. “I don’t know, babe. I’ve been thinking about it all day.” Like me, he’d been going back and forth between Give up, it’s a lost cause, and No, it doesn’t have to be; he’d been feeling sad, like someone had died. Bill’s just as stubborn as me; he hated to admit defeat if there was still a chance things could work out. At the same time, he didn’t want either of us to be a sucker.
Well, maybe it could work out after all, I ventured. Now that we knew her real problem, maybe we could find some kind of help for her; maybe a residential treatment program, where she’d finally go through the kind of intensive talk therapy she really needed, with the right medications, for a change. And I’d stay in touch with her like I always did when she was away—writing letters, calling, visiting on family day, sending packages with books and mixed CDs from Bill—and at the end of the term, maybe six months or a year, she’d be returned to us, fixed.
I watched Bill consider it, watched his dubious look turn wistful. “I don’t know, either. My first instinct is, I want us to keep trying to help her.” Then his look turned back to dubious. “As long as ‘helping her’ means ‘sending her away somewhere for a good long time.’”
After an hour of discussion
, we decided to try to stick by her, a decision I expected everybody to understand, including my folks, who were horrified by the news that I’d been lied to, duped—“conned,” as my dad said over the phone when I told him.
Fortunately, I’d already argued this in my head. “But she didn’t con me out of anything, Dad. Actually, in the worst possible way, she brought out the best in me. I never knew I could be so strong and competent. I never knew how I’d react if someone I loved were dying, and now I know—I’ll be right there for them. And I don’t think I’m ever going to have a kid, but if I did, now I know I’d be a really great mom. That knowledge, that opportunity—it’s been an incredible gift.”
“But she’s so unstable,” said Sylvia from the other extension. “Honey, I really think you should change the locks on your doors.”
I drew in a breath for patience. “She doesn’t have the keys, Sylvia. And she’s not violent. She hurts herself, not others.”
“But you were hurt here,” my father insisted. “And Bill, too.”
Now I set my mouth in a hard line. How dare anybody imply that I’d caused Bill to be hurt? “Bill agrees with me. We discussed it last night, and he wants to see if there’s a way to continue to help this girl.”
“Well, I don’t see how you can stay involved with her, after what she’s done….”
How absurd, to find myself back at the age of thirteen again—You can’t tell me who to be friends with! You can’t tell me what to do! “Dad, I’m not going to abandon her because she lied to me. That’s what teenagers do—they lie. And instead of punishing her for it, I’m going to take the time to find out why she did it, and what I can do to help her, so she doesn’t get herself into this kind of trouble again. Maybe if someone had done the same for me when I was a kid, I wouldn’t have wound up living in a shelter for two and a half months.”
Touché. “All right,” he said stiffly. “Well, I hope it works out for you.”
I hung up, furious, and started to pace. Conned. I hadn’t been conned—I was the one who had busted the con! Well, my folks would see; everyone would see. I’d long ago determined that I was going to help Sam, and I was going to succeed in helping her, no matter what.
Have You Found Her Page 32