Jude wrote: She boasted of how sly she is to her friends. All of them married, career women. “Me, I don’t worry about my husband cheating on me with any housemaid. I just simply tell the housemaid the first day she resumes that my husband is HIV positive. It has never failed me. You should see the maids even afraid to wash his plates.”

One asked. “Does your husband know that you tell them that?” “Who cares.”

“But you are dragging his name in the mud. These maids gossip you know.”

“Their circles will never cross my circles, so I truly don’t care who and who they gossip with.”

‘Well, my maid told me that your maid told her that you and your husband have Aids.”

“What?!”

“You don’t know that they all talk when we carry them with us to all those birthday parties we go with the children.”

“You mean she has told the other maids?”

Another one responded.

“Yes. We have all been concerned. Especially since she said she never sees you or your husband using anti-retrovirals.”

“What? You think I am HIV positive?”

“We thought so, now we know you don’t.”

“And do your husbands know about it?”

They all nodded in unison.

“And you call yourselves my friends. I mean you will hear that about me and you will not be concerned enough to ask me?”

Another one responded.

“There are some things you only discuss when the person concerned opens to you. We were all just praying for you.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, unless you want us to poke our noses in your affairs and tell you everything we hear.”

“Yes poke your nose. What other thing have you heard?”

They all looked at each other.

She gazed at them.

“What are you guys looking at each other for? What did you hear?”

Another one spoke.

“You are sure you want to hear.”

“Yes.”

“Okay, your maid told our maids that your husband went to take a HIV test to prove to her that he is negative…”