My Life After Now

19

Sunday




Papa didn’t get home until the next morning. Dad and I were sitting at the table, stewing, our untouched breakfast congealing in front of us, when he shuffled in. He was still dressed in yesterday’s rumpled clothes and his face was all stubbly. Dad breathed a long sigh of relief. I watched and waited.

He hovered in the doorway, pausing, looking at me. When he finally came in, he scooted my chair out so I was facing him, and then he kneeled down on the kitchen floor tile and flung his arms around me.

It was the first time I felt like things might actually be okay.

“Dad told me about Patrick,” I whispered.

He held on a little longer, then pulled back to look at me. “Lucy Rose Moore,” he said firmly, “you are not Patrick. Patrick was an idiot.”

Well, I wasn’t expecting that.

Papa continued. “Patrick was irresponsible and reckless and didn’t know the first thing about taking care of himself. You are smart and young and have the whole world in front of you. You are not Patrick,” he said again. I didn’t know if he was trying to convince me or himself.

It was then that Lisa came downstairs. She took one look at Papa and said, “Christ, Seth, you look bloody awful,” before helping herself to a gigantic bowl of cereal with a heaping tablespoon of sugar on top.

“Good morning to you too, Lisa,” Papa said, shooting her a loathsome glance.

“Lucy, Seth,” Dad stepped in, “why don’t we leave Lisa to her breakfast and go sit on the back porch?”

“It’s about forty degrees outside, Adam.”

“So?” Dad replied, giving him a pointed look and nodding his head in Lisa’s direction. “Thank you,” I mouthed to Dad as the three of us left the kitchen.

“All right, what was that all about?” Papa asked after we were all safely outside in the crisp morning air.

“Lucy has requested that we don’t discuss any of this in front of Lisa.”

“I don’t want her to know,” I said.

Papa nodded, thinking. “She would probably be less than understanding.”

“Yeah, but that’s not exactly it. I don’t want anyone to know.”

“No one?”

“No one.”

“What about your friends?”

“I told Evan. It didn’t go well.”

“Oh.” Papa frowned. “What about Courtney and Max?”

I shook my head. “I’m not telling anyone else.”

“What about—”

“Papa, I’m not telling anyone. End of story.”

“You may change your mind about that,” Dad said. “But now that the three of us are together, we need to figure out what we’re going to do next.”

A slight tremor rumbled inside me. “What do you mean?”

“First, we need to find you a good doctor. You need to go on medication,” Dad said.

“And regular therapy is going to be crucial as well,” Papa continued. “I’ll make some calls, ask around.”

It seemed the idyllic let’s-not-talk-about-it arrangement from yesterday was long gone. I shook my head. “No way. No doctors, no therapy.”

They stared at me.

“What are you talking about?” Dad asked.

“I don’t want any of that. I went online, Dad, I know what this thing is going to do to me. I’d just rather live my life normally for as long as I can before I have to deal with any of that stuff.” I didn’t think it necessary to mention that my life had already lost all semblance of normalcy.

“But, Lucy, doctors and medication and therapy are the things that are going to allow you to live a normal life. Don’t you understand?” Dad said.

“I don’t care. I don’t want it,” I repeated stubbornly, arms folded over my chest.

So quickly I didn’t even see him do it, Papa crossed the porch and grabbed my face. “You listen to me, young lady. You are a minor, and we are your parents. Therefore, you will do what we say. Got it?”

My eyes grew wide. Papa never spoke to me like that—he always took my side. But clearly something had changed in him. “But—”

“This is not up for negotiation, Lucy,” Papa said, releasing his grip on me. “You are not giving up.”

“Papa,” I said slowly and calmly. “What is HIV?”

“Don’t you know?” he asked.

“Of course I know. But I want to hear it from you.”

He remained silent.

“Fine, I’ll say it. It’s the virus that causes AIDS. And what is AIDS?”

I waited again for him to respond, but he didn’t, so again I answered my own question.

“It’s a disease that tears your body apart until you die.” I paused to clear my throat and collect myself. “Papa, don’t you get it? I have HIV, and someday I’m going to have AIDS, and someday after that I’m going to die.”

I heard Dad’s sniffling, but I didn’t remove my gaze from Papa’s face.

He stared back at me with fiery eyes and a set jaw. “Not on my watch,” he said.

• • •

That evening as I was getting ready for bed, they came up to my room.

“I did some investigating,” Papa said, “and found a doctor in the city that comes highly recommended. I’m going to call first thing tomorrow to get you an appointment. And this,” he said, handing me a stack of computer printouts, “is information about different therapists, group meetings, and support centers in Westchester and Manhattan. You can review them and decide which ones you’d like to try.”

“I don’t want to try any of them,” I mumbled.

“Well, you should have thought about that before going home with some guy you didn’t know, shouldn’t you?” Papa snapped back.

I gasped. I’d assumed Dad would tell him the whole story, but the last thing I expected was for him to throw it back in my face like that.

He swallowed. “I’m sorry, Lu,” he said more softly. “I didn’t mean…I don’t blame you. It just…would mean a lot to me if you chose a meeting to go to. Or a private therapist, I don’t care. But you have to do something. Please?”

The picture of Papa’s face, frozen in time, as he told me Patrick had died, flickered across my mind.

Why did everything have to be so damn complicated? “Fine,” I relented, throwing my hands up in the air. “I’ll go. For you. But it’s not going to help.”