* * *
Sarah finally emerges from Hi-Health with her bag of new sweaters, another bag of new shoes, and now a bag of vitamins and supplements as well. The problem is she doesn’t feel any better. In fact, she feels worse than ever; and once again she has to listen to another witness’s testimony as she walks down the mall toward the exit. It was Terri Simmons of Miami, Florida.
“In January 1992 we found out my husband was HIV-positive…. The hardest part was to face my beautiful and adorable one-year-old girl. They told us she was condemned to die…. The only way out of that despair, of that suffering, was to kill ourselves. There was no other solution for us. It would end the pain and the nightmare right at the beginning…. Two weeks later my test result came out – I was HIV-NEGATIVE! So, it meant that my baby girl was negative too. Now my husband was the only one of us condemned to die…. Our marriage was falling apart. We had no sex life for two years. My husband did not want to take any chances of contaminating me. The only sure way was abstinence…. Less than two months after he was diagnosed as HIV-positive, my husband started with the symptoms of AIDS: diarrhea, nausea, weight loss, and so on. The strange thing was that the symptoms began right after he started taking AZT. He was feeling so bad, so sick, that he decided, against his doctor's will, to stop taking AZT. All of a sudden, like magic, no more symptoms. He was healthy and normal again, and remains so ever since.”
Toward the end of Mrs. Simmon's testimony, the sound started to reverberate in Sarah's head. She finally runs the last hundred feet out of the mall and collapses with her bags on a bench outside. Although the TVs can’t reach her anymore, the words of Terri Simmons are ringing in her ears. She falls forward, catching her head in her hands and letting them both fall to her lap. Her body trembles for a minute. Finally, she pulls herself together and takes out her cell phone.
“Sam, it's Sarah. Maybe you were right....” Sam obviously says something like, “Right about what?” on the other end. “Well, maybe I shouldn't be the one covering this case for you.... I know, but it's taking its toll.... Remember when you told me not to take it all so personally?” Sarah starts crying. “That's not easy for me to do, Sam.”
Sarah thought she could make it through a quick call to her boss to ask for the rest of the day off. But she can’t. She starts sobbing uncontrollably, and it’s a long time before she can speak again. Sam apparently has been waiting patiently on the other end of the line. Or maybe he’s been talking the whole time. “…Yes, Sam, I'm depressed.” And then her sarcasm finds its way to the surface. “How can you tell?”
Sam must be concerned and asks where she is. “I'm at the mall.... Yeah, I think I need to take the afternoon off, if that's okay.... Yes, Sam, like someone once said, when a woman gets depressed, she either eats or goes shopping. Well, I'm doing both.... No, Sam, I don’t know what men do when they get depressed….” Despite everything that was going on inside her, Sarah couldn’t help but laugh at the answer, as tragic as it was true. According to comedienne Elayne Boosler, when men get depressed, they invade another country.
Wrongful Death: The AIDS Trial Page 42
