a chance to squash her spirit completely. She moved to Los Angeles where she now lived (quite happily, thank you) with her sister Susan and her young nephew Tommy. During her twenty-six years of marriage to Harvey, Jennifer had rarely ventured off the east coast, never visiting California, not even going as far west as Chicago. She and Harvey had been snobbish Northeasterners, believing that the only cultural life of the country bloomed within the boundaries of the original thirteen colonies.
But Los Angeles had its advantages over New York, albeit they were mostly the obvious. The warmer climate, for one; the warmer attitude, for another. Jennifer enjoyed the laid-back California lifestyle especially after the pressure of the last few years. And living with Susan had ended up being fun, almost like reliving her childhood in certain respects. Jennifer and Susan had always been close, confiding in each other even as small children. As they grew older, both sisters decided that they would always live near each other. Jennifer, older than Susan by two years, had gotten married first, to a doctor named Harvey Riker.
Almost in a rush not to be left behind, Susan married another doctor, Bruce Grey, a year and a half later. Harvey and Bruce quickly became friends and even medical partners while Jennifer and Susan continued to grow closer and closer. Everything was moving along perfectly until one minor problem began to snag up the works.
Bruce and Susan started drifting apart.
After a few futile attempts to save a dying marriage, Susan left Bruce, moving to Los Angeles and taking their seven-year old son, Tommy, with her. Jennifer and Harvey had been horrified when they heard. They started to feel isolated and afraid, and for the first time, Harvey and Jennifer began to question their own happiness and examine their own relationship. From then on, it had been only a question of time.
Jennifer closed her eyes and sighed. She took out a key, opened the door, and stepped inside the apartment. Almost immediately the phone rang.
"Hello?"
"Is this Mrs. Susan Grey?"
"She's not here at the moment. May I ask who's calling?"
"Is this Mrs. Jennifer Riker?"
"Yes, it is."
"Good morning, Mrs. Riker. This is Terence Lebrock."
"Oh, you're the executor of Bruce's will."
"That's correct. I just wanted to let you know that I sent a post office box key via overnight mail yesterday. You should be receiving it today."
"A post office box key? I'm not sure I understand."
"Dr. Grey kept a post office box in the main branch of the Los Angeles post office. I think it would be best if somebody clears out that box right away. There might be important papers in there." Jennifer thought for a moment. Odd that Bruce had a post office box in Los Angeles. Of course it could be the same one he had used during his two-year stint in the research department at UCLA, but why would he have saved it? She shrugged. It was probably another example of Bruce's compulsive personality.
"Don't worry, Mr. Lebrock. I'll clear it out today."
The silence was staggering. It filled the room, expanding, growing larger and larger until Sara was sure the walls around them were about to give way. First, there had been denial. How could it be? Michael had never experimented with homosexuality.
He had never been an intravenous drug abuser. He was not a hemophiliac who needed constant blood transfusions. He had slept with no one but Sara for six years. Any way you looked at it, Michael should have been a very healthy, thirty-two-year-old man.
Except he was not healthy. He was lying in a hospital bed with hepatitis B and a positive reading on an HIV test. His T cell count was dangerously low and the most obvious conclusion the doctors could draw was that Michael had received contaminated blood in the Bahamas after his boating accident.
He had AIDS.
She looked at him now. His handsome face showed no emotion, so strange for a man as filled with passion as Michael, a man who rarely hid thoughts and feeling behind a black expression. She thought about the first time she had seen that face, the first time she had ever spoken to him in person.
The door swung open and Beethoven's Sonata No. 32 in C minor escaped from the room and moved outside.
"Yes?" Michael said. He was surprisingly handsome, tall, of course, with broad shoulders. There was a towel draped around his neck, a glass of what looked like orange juice in his hand. Perspiration matted the