Have You Found Her (22 page)

This was what I had signed up for. This was what I was going to see through.

Chapter Nine

Elopement

         
T
wo weeks later, and there’d been no further word from Sam. No follow-up call, no letters—but
no news is good news,
I tried to tell myself. I’d have to settle for no news for now; it was better than most of the news I’d gotten from Sam in the past. Besides, I had news of my own to make.

It was Bill’s thirtieth birthday, and he’d swapped days with a coworker so he could have the day off. We woke up late, took a long run together, and went to an opening-day afternoon showing of
Batman Begins
. We ate popcorn and candy for lunch, then strolled toward the park in the sunshine. “What do you want to do now?” he asked.

Propose,
I thought, my heartbeat quickening. Today was the day, and now was the time. I had to get him home and spring the ring on him. “I don’t know,” I said, trying to sound casual. “Maybe head home?”

We were on our way home when Bill got a call from work—some bullshit Mac problem—they wanted him to come in and fix something. He snapped his phone shut, grumbling. “You’re not going down there, are you?” I asked, anxious.

“I don’t want to, but apparently they can’t do a goddamn thing without me.”

“Well, call them back and tell them you can’t.” My voice rose in frustration. We didn’t have a lot of time before the dinner plans we’d made with my dad and stepmom, and now Bill was in a shitty mood, and how was I going to ask him to marry me if he was all cranky and snappish, as I was now, too? We bickered—yes, we actually bickered on the day of our engagement—but then his phone rang again, and the problem had been solved, and by the time we got home, he was putting his arms around me and turning me to face him.

“This is why our relationship is so important,” he said. “Because there’s all the bullshit and stress we both have to deal with, and then there’s you and me. And as stressed out as we get, I know you’re always on my side, and you know I’m always on yours.”

I looked past his glasses into his green-brown eyes, and my pulse raced again. “Funny you should mention that.” I took a few steps to the cabinet I’d been using as a hiding place and pulled out the velvet box.

“What’s this?” he asked, making greedy hands. “My present?”
A pair of cuff links,
he thought, or so he told me later.

“This…I…” I flipped open the box to reveal the matching rings. I had this cute little speech prepared—
Honey, we’re so crazy about each other, I think we should be committed
—but it flew out of my head. “H…honey,” I stammered, mouth dry. “I love you, and I want us to be together. Always.”

“Oh. Oh wow.” Bill gaped at the rings, the idea dawning on him. “Is this…Are you asking me…”

By now I was crying too much to speak, so I nodded, laughing and crying as he rushed in to grab me, holding me so tight, kissing my face, and crying himself. “Oh, honey. Oh my god.”

“So…yes?” I asked, over his shoulder.

He drew back and looked at me like I was crazy, brilliant, possibly dangerous, totally irresistible. “YES,” he said.

We ran to the bedroom and cemented the deal.

Once we were showered and dressed for dinner, Bill called his family with the news; I called my brother. Bill called his best friends; I called mine. I heard him on the other side of the room, laughing. “I wasn’t expecting it, either!” I grinned over at him, cupping one ear. “I’ll tell him you said so!” We took a picture of ourselves together and e-mailed it to the rest of our friends—subject line:
Committed!
Then we took a cab uptown and met my father and stepmother at a restaurant in Midtown.

“What’s different about us?” we demanded, holding up our ringed fingers.

My stepmother’s hands flew to her mouth, and my father looked like he might
plotz
from joy. “You’re engaged!”

And so we were. We spent the next week making lists, checking the calendar, planning locations and menus, listing our invitees. “Samantha,” said Bill, like,
of course
.

I put my hands in the prayer position. “
If
she can get permission to come. She’s got to get off orientation, first. And there’ll be alcohol there; they might not let her come without a chaperone. Or at all. But I’ll write her and ask her, honey. That would be so awesome, if she could make it.”

Everything made its way onto a list. We ran around town looking for venues, and I danced in front of him on the sidewalk, gesturing to where I thought we’d stand, where our families could be, how the whole production would
flow
.

“So you think we can do this by September? That only gives us three months. We’ll have to book the place as soon as possible, get the invites out in the next two or three weeks…plus the food, the dress….”

“Are you thinking you might like to invite your mom?” Bill asked delicately.

Huh. Funny enough, the last time I’d seen my mom was six years earlier at her own wedding, to a guy I’d met only once before. Nice enough guy; nice enough affair. I sat at a table with my then-boyfriend and my brother and his girlfriend, kept my profile low. Toward the end of the event, my mother and I chatted alone for the length of one of her cigarettes, then I left, and we went back to exchanging greeting cards. “I’ve been to three of her weddings,” I said. “I guess I should invite her to one of mine.”

I left her a message that night. “Hi, Mom. Just wanted to let you know that Bill and I got engaged, and I’ll be sending you an invitation to the wedding as soon as we have the date. Just wanted to share the good news. Hope all’s well with you. Bye.”

So the wedding plans took shape, with the help of my dad and stepmom. We booked the banquet room at a nearby hotel, designed the invites, and set up an appointment with a baker to sit around and taste a variety of cakes. I tried not to go too Bridezilla on anybody, tried not to talk too much about my dress or the flowers or the menu, tried to just live my life as usual—running in the morning, working, going to the shelter on Wednesdays. Except now I had something extra nice to think about, and a pretty ring to wear.

I mailed an invitation to Sam’s halfway house, with a note attached, addressed to whomever it concerned:
I hope you’ll consider letting Samantha attend this event; if there’s any way I can facilitate that, please let me know. Thank you sincerely, Janice Erlbaum.
Drummed my fingers waiting for a reply. My mother had not replied to her invitation, either. But other friends and family were responding right and left; it was shaping up to be a very special day for us. “You two certainly are a happy couple,” marveled the baker, almost suspiciously, as she walked us to the elevator of her loft and bade us good-bye. “Most people aren’t nearly as relaxed and cheerful as you two.”

Well, most people weren’t marrying Bill (or getting domestically partnered to him—we’d decided to save legal marriage until all of our friends were granted the same right). I felt like I’d just met him again, this adorable, funny, generous, patient guy who rubbed my shoulders at night, cleared the table after dinner, told me, “I’m happy to deal with the programs, Shmoo, if you want to take care of the flowers.” I still couldn’t believe I’d wound up with someone so even-tempered, so attentive, so unlike anyone I’d ever dated before. After six or seven months of being blinded by Sam, I was rubbing my eyes and blinking in amazement at the brilliant man I’d conned into becoming my partner.

While I was making wedding arrangements, I took the opportunity to call the Disney reservation line and inquire about a week’s vacation in early December (“the best possible time to go,” according to Sam and her guidebook). She’d only be eleven months sober by then, but now that we knew her diagnosis, I felt like it was okay to let the extra month slide. Depending on her T cell count and viral load, I thought, time might be of the essence.

“And how many will be in your party?” asked the reservation agent.

I had to ask Bill before I could answer. When I’d originally conceived the trip, in that flash of desperate inspiration, I’d thought it would just be me and Sam. Now, five months later, I was an engaged woman. If I was unofficially adopting Sam, I wasn’t doing it alone. Bill had made it clear that he wanted to be my partner in every way, including my relationship with Sam. Which was typically wonderful of him but also made me nervous. I didn’t know what I’d do if they didn’t get along, if Sam was jealous of Bill, or vice versa. Maybe she’d feel like I did, all those times as a kid, when my mom would invite some guy along on one of our weekend jaunts, and he’d ruin the whole thing, and then she’d wind up marrying him.
Sam, meet your new stepfather, Bill.

Except Bill wasn’t just
some guy
. Maybe Sam hoped it would just be me and her on this trip, but she’d soon see that she was better off with the twofer. Bill made my life better; he’d do the same for her. And Sam would enrich Bill’s life in return.

I pitched Bill the Disney scheme as though it had just occurred to me. “I was thinking, since Sam got her diagnosis, I’d really like to do something for her around the holidays. She’ll be about a year sober by then, and I think it’ll give her some extra incentive to hang in there through this difficult period. Maybe we could take her to Disney World for a long weekend or something.”

Bill was an easier sell than I’d thought. Aesthete that he was, I expected him to scoff at Disney, but he surprised me. “I think that’s a great idea, babe. You pick the dates, and I’ll arrange for the time off.”

“You’d want to come with us?”

“Sure,” he avowed. “I mean, I’m sure it’s cheesy, but I’ve never been, and you’ve made it sound kind of fun. Especially with you and Sam.”

“That’s great.” I beamed. “I’ll book the rooms this weekend.”

So this was how the rest of the year was shaping up: Get married, take weeklong honeymoon in Bermuda, go to Disney World with Sam. It was almost too much to look forward to, too much to plan, too much to think about when I lay down to sleep at night. Too much good fortune, and too much guilt—spending too much money, when everybody else had none. When I went to the shelter on a Wednesday night, and girls were arguing over a four-pack of SnackWells, pushing one another hard enough to nearly get themselves discharged. When people were dying in Iraq, in Darfur, in an AIDS hospice a few blocks away.

I squeezed my eyes shut and turned over.
I’m doing my best
. And turned over again.
No, I can’t accept it.
But most of all, what I couldn’t accept was my own happy, privileged life.

July 11, 2005

Janice,

Thanks for your letters. I’m sorry I’ve been so lame about writing back. I think about you all the time and stuff I wish we could talk about. And I’m really happy that you and Bill got engaged. I know I barely talked to him, but he’s a great guy. I can’t wait for the wedding in September, and you can put me down as a guest for sure, because I’m moving out of this dump this weekend! They don’t know yet, only me and my roommate Valentina know. Me and her have been saving up and we have enough to live on for a few months, so I’ll have time to get a job. We’re bouncing on Sunday as soon as we get our allowance and we already talked to this lady who’s renting us a room. So everything is set up, and I’ll call you as soon as we break out. I can’t wait to talk to you in person but for now here’s the info you asked for: T cells = 145, viral load = 275,000, multiple opportunistic infections, multi-drug-resistant strain. So the doc says it looks like full-blown AIDS, not just HIV. But I’m still doing really well for right now, I feel good and happy and motivated. Every day I wake up grateful for what I have and I look forward to what’s coming (school, work, spending time with friends, Disney World). Believe it or not, life is really good, and like you used to tell me, it’s only going to get better from here. Well I better go but I’ll talk to you real soon.

Until then, peace.

Sam

I read and reread the letter, trying to figure out what to do.
She’s going to elope from her program,
I told myself.
What’s to figure out?
I remembered when she almost skipped out on the halfway house last time, how grateful I was that Jodi had talked her into going back. I had to be the responsible one now. I had to call the program, call Jodi, call Maria, call everybody, and tell them what Sam was planning. She could not be allowed to run.

But…the numbers.
T cells
©
145, viral load
©
275,000, multiple opportunistic infections, multi-drug-resistant strain. So the doc says it looks like full-blown AIDS.

The numbers were bad. They were beyond bad. Five minutes of web searching confirmed it: she was toast. There were not enough meds in the world to keep her alive for more than a year, if that. It was a minor miracle that she was standing upright.

I called my friend Jay, who had volunteered for God’s Love We Deliver. He tried to buck me up. “You know, sometimes people on my route who looked like they were seriously dying would surprise me and rebound for a few months. People can live long past their doctors’ prognosis, you never know.”