Page 66 of The Warmth of Our Closest Star

“Are you serious?” Peter leapt from the chair, his book fluttering to the ground.

He wrapped his arms around me and pulled me in, covering my mouth with his. I returned his kiss and rested my hands on his hips.

I was happy. I really was. But I had mostly been happy anyway. My citizenship didn’t change that, either.

“We have to celebrate!” Peter held me at arm’s length, grinning from ear to ear. “What do you want to do? We can go eat dinner anywhere. You name it. Anything.”

Sighing, though I managed to smile, I said, “I think I want to go home.”

Peter’s smile melted from his face as if in slow motion.

“Just go home?”

“Yes,” I said. “I’m tired. We have the entire weekend to celebrate.”

For a moment, I thought Peter would argue. Insist that we celebrate my citizenship. However, he finally forced a smile back onto his face and squeezed my arms where his hands were resting.

“Okay, babe.”

He knelt and retrieved his book, put an arm gently over my shoulders, and we left.

A two-person parade out of the immigration office was the celebration for my citizenship.

The Center Cannot Hold

Two things happened four weeks later. During a dreary mid-morning ceremony on a Friday, I took The Naturalization Oath of Allegiance to the United States of America, and then Peter took me to the hospital. Though skinny to begin with, I had lost twenty pounds since starting my new medication. Thanks to the cumulative side effects of the medication over months of taking it, the constant nausea and intermittent pain made it impossible to keep down food. Sometimes even water was difficult to retain.

Joints that I’d never noticed in my body before ached, feeling as though they would crack with the smallest of movements. If I wasn’t at work, I was in bed, doing my best not to cry from frustration, fear, and pain. And hunger.

I was so hungry.

And thirsty.

Peter had wanted to take me to an emergency room when we had woken up on the morning I was to take the oath. One look at my gaunt expression and the way I practically crawled to the bathroom to get ready, and he was certain I was at death’s door. Unfortunately, I knew that I wasn’t dying; it would have simply been preferable. I was suffering. Not dying. Not yet.

I’d refused to try and reschedule my taking of the oath for fear that it would make me look bad, thus revoking my citizenship. So, I took a shower, put on appropriate clothes for the ceremony, and let Peter put me in the car and drive me across town to take the oath. For what seemed like days, we sat through the ceremony as I did my best to sit upright and pay attention. Then I stood, followed the instructions, and took the oath.

Back in the car as soon as we were dismissed, Peter went straight to the hospital.

Unsurprisingly, Peter and I had to convince the nurses and doctors that, as his husband, I did not, in fact, have HIV. Peter heatedly explained about my tumor, my seizure disorder, and the medication that was attempting to kill me slowly.

Throughout the afternoon, evening, and into the wee hours of the morning, I was given intravenous fluids and medication for nausea and pain. Sometime around midnight, Peter fell asleep in the chair at my bedside, though I was unable to rest. Until the treatments started to do their jobs, all I could focus on was the pain, hunger, and thirst.

The sun was coming up and Peter was rousing from his sleep when the nurse entered again with a tray of soup and crackers, along with a pitcher of water and a Styrofoam cup. Now that my nausea was controlled, my fluids replenished intravenously, and my pain had been chased away, I was able to eat the soup and crackers and drink more than four cups of water.

Pleased with the results of the overnight treatment, a doctor discharged me from the emergency room in the late morning. Peter was given instructions—since I was too exhausted to pay attention—that I should follow up with my doctor as soon as possible.

The doctor who had practically insisted I take the generic medication that had caused me to end up in the emergency room to begin with.

There was nothing else to do but go home. Peter helped me into the house after the drive across town. Then up the stairs to our bedroom. He helped me shower and put on fresh, clean pajamas, and into the bed. All of Saturday and Sunday I slept, taking the medications the doctor in the emergency room had prescribed for my nausea and pain. I only woke to eat the food Peter brought to me at meal times.

On Monday morning, I got out of bed, showered, put on fresh clothes, and went to work. Mr. Barton had promised that I would have my new job as soon as I had taken my citizenship oath. I wasn’t going to risk jeopardizing that, either.

And, of course, Peter was unhappy with me for risking my health further. He wanted me to stay home for at least a few days to recover. The only thing we did talk about was getting me back on the medication that didn’t try to kill me—but I still could not see spending thousands of our own dollars when our insurance should have covered it. But we didn’t talk about it for long. We simply ate breakfast and went our separate ways in stony silence when it was time for us both to go to work.

I became a shell of a person. All of the energy I could muster was used to focus on my training at work—to become the best employee I could be for Source Language, Inc. At work, I was engaged, enthusiastic, attentive, and cognizant. At home, I would often sit and stare at the wall and wait for an appropriate time to go to bed each day. I could no longer be perfect at everything. I only had the energy to be perfect at one thing.

For better or worse, and much to my detriment, I chose my job. Because it was the one thing I had left that defined me that was solely mine and didn’t hurt.