Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2004. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Bay Windows - September 23, 2004
Walter Wadas
This collection of nine stories by Paula W. Peterson portrays the sometimes sweet, but more often sad and painful daily existence of women HIV and AIDS. Perhaps Peterson knows this kind of suffering too well. Her memoir, "Penitent with Roses" told her own first person story as an HIV-positive woman and mother.
In "The As and Is," Brianna and Helene are high school sophomores who belong to the same support group. The As and Is - short for Affecteds and Infecteds - meets on Tuesday, but the evening of the story the girls are together as Helene's home. Both Brianna and Helene are infecteds. They are supposed to be studying "hypotenuse triangles," but instead spent their time jiving about sex. Among the book's other strong black females, Camille and Nerissa are an antagonistic mother and daughter, both infected. Camille has been "off the streets," clean and sober for a year. She has a shiftless, twenty year old son, Elton, about to bring his pregnant girlfriend to live with them. But seven and a half year old Nerissa is even more trouble. "See, Mama takes hers," Camille cajoles, trying to get her daughter to take medicine. Nerissa has made up her mind not "put one more of those pills even halfway into her mouth." Camille has not told Nerissa that she came into the world an HIV-infected baby.
Terrance, age eight, is not infected, but his mother Nickie is. In the story titled "Big Brother," Nickie has called on the organization of that name in order that her son may have some male companionship. When Keith shows up, Nickie thinks, "[he] ain't big and he sure ain't no brother." Keith is l9 and blond, and it's only a short time until 31-year-old Nickie tells him, "Take off your clothes and lie down."
In "The Woman in the Long Green Coat," Olga Lobanov takes off her coat - and more - for Dr. Nathan Berg. The doctor detects swollen lymph nodes in the woman's groin. The fateful results do not deter a sexual liaison, until Olga longs to return to her mother in Russia. She takes money from the doctor and leaves the US, knowing she has given herself a death sentence.
The "grove" of "Women in the Grove" refers to the San Francisco AIDS Memorial Grove in Golden Gate Park. It's a place where, Peterson writes, "death itself becomes almost incidental." As she has said and must be continuing to do herself, Peterson's stories are all about the imperative to go on living.
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