Golden wheeled to face the judge. "I have to object most strongly to the court making that statement," she said loudly and as gruffly as she could. "Without any grounds whatever to make that allegation? That's an awful thing to do, in a public forum, absolutely shocking. My client doesn't have AIDS. How could you even suggest such a thing."
"Contain yourself, counsellor," the judge said. "Taking your client at her word, the most she can possibly say is that she doesn't think she has AIDS. As I understand it, when her no-good husband went to Louisiana and deserted her and their children two years ago, once and for all, it wasn't his first defection, just his last. He'd wandered off repeatedly before that, picking up women in bars. There'd been several previous separations, each followed by another unsuccessful attempt at reconciliation, during which she said he was always loving and tender. I assume that means they had sex.
"She doesn't know whether those other women, however many there may have been, were free of AIDS. Or whether one or more of those "women" might've been a man. All she knows is what her rotten ex-husband told her, and as we all know now, he was not to be trusted.
"So unless she's been tested, she doesn't really know whether he contracted the disease and passed it on to her during one of their lovey-dovey reconciliations, before he left her the last time and vanished into the mist. Therefore, Ms Golden, my question to you is:
Has your client been tested since her husband lit out for the territories, and if so what were the results?"
Golden conferred urgently with Blanchard, pulling her loose to whisper and cupping her hand over the side of her face otherwise visible from the bench. Blanchard shook her head and said audibly: "No, I never have been."
Golden sighed. She lowered her hand and faced the bench. "She says she's never been tested, your Honor."
The judge sighed and shook his head. "Oh dear," he said, "I was afraid of that.
"Well, no help for it; this is what I'm going to do here. Having in mind the very real anxiety that Officer Morrison and his wife have to feel here, Mrs. Blanchard, and also the fact that as I'm sure Attorney Golden can tell you I have no power to order you to do this; there's a law against it and anyway, as I see it, you could invoke the Fifth Amendment: I am going to put over for one week formal imposition of the sentence in this case. During that time I want you to consult with your attorney and decide, of your own free will, whether you should have a blood test to determine whether you carry the virus that causes AIDS. If you do that you'll be able to say whether you would have tested positive when you attacked Officer Morrison last month. And, if you instruct the testing lab to deliver a copy of the results to Mister Merrion, my clerk, for the court's information and that of Officer Morrison, we will then know that too.
"Now, if all that should take place, this is what I will do here when I review the case next week:
"I'll suspend imposition of the sentence to MCI Framingham for a period of two years, provided you agree to resign immediately from the School Advisory Committee, making a public statement you now understand that your conduct at the town meeting was an outrageous, shameful, reckless, and dangerous act for which you are deeply, deeply sorry. And ashamed.
And that even though you have expressed your deep regret to Officer Morrison and are keeping him in your prayers for his full recovery of the use of his left hand, you agree your actions mean that you're unfit to serve on the committee. And so you must step down.
"Assuming you decide that it's in everyone's best interest for you to do that, and the test results turn out to be negative as I'm sure you hope they do as fervently as everyone else involved you will further agree that at the end of that two-year period you will voluntarily submit to testing again. And if those results also prove to be negative for the HIV virus, and you have not been in any other trouble between now and then, I will reconsider, revise and revoke the jail sentence and you will be free to go."
Blanchard's first blood test had been negative. In the fourteen months since then the x-rays had shown that Morrison's tendon had failed to repair itself. Surgery had been performed. The doctors had found greater damage to the thumb joint than the x-rays had led them to expect, and now believed the operation should have been performed the night of the attack. They predicted Morrison would never regain more than sixty percent use of his left hand probably less, around forty.
