"There Is No Me Without You" Excerpt
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Like any proud new mother, she invited her friends, "Come see my children!"
Nervously, fearful of catching AIDS, fearful of finding Haregewoin in too pathetic a state, the old friends and colleagues crept to the door of the compound and peeked in. Whatever grim scenario they'd imagined — perhaps a black-draped woman weeping beside ghastly waifs — was not what they found. They found Haregewoin invigorated, planting a vegetable garden, while Meskerem and Selamawit jumped rope on the driveway.
"You see?" Haregewoin said, laughing.
Well-reared girls, Meskerem and Selamawit politely extended their hands to shake hands with Haregewoin's friends. Most of the women laughed nervously and found ways to avoid skin-to-skin contact. One clapped her hands together, enthusing over the garden, and turned away; another rewarded the outstretched little hand with the gift of a mango. No one, on a first visit, would accept a bite to eat at this house.
"Are they sick?" someone asked bluntly.
Haregewoin knew the prim questioner meant "Aren't you worried they'll infect you?"
The question rattled Haregewoin terribly from the moment it was asked. Not because she feared for herself! She feared for the children. She tried to unhear the question, to forget that she'd heard it, but she could not. They didn't look sick.
That's what she kept returning to: how healthy they looked. They bounced out of bed in the morning; they peppered her with questions — about people, about birds, about dogs (could they have a puppy?); they were eager to have uniforms and to start school.
She assumed their mothers had died of AIDS; it couldn't be known for certain. Could the virus be snaking through their veins at this very moment, while they sat in the sunshine playing jacks with small stones and laughing?
And if they were infected...oh, God, it meant she had taken leave of her senses to love them; she had moved far too quickly and had placed herself at risk. She should have listened to her friends, not for their reasons (they believed that orphans of AIDS were dangerous to your health), but because if Meskerem and Selamawit were sick...well, she didn't think she could go there again.
She'd been joyously captured by the little girls; were they now going to haul her, their willingly captive new mother, to places she never wanted to see again?
In 2000, there were no anti-AIDS drugs in Ethiopia outside the black market.
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