Finally, she recalled, "he gave it to me straight."
He admitted to sleeping with other men for cash to support his addiction to crack cocaine, she said. He'd known of his illness for nearly a decade, she said, but kept it secret out of fear of losing her.
Pena said she had known about the drugs but was shocked by the prostitution. Still, she saw him through his bout with pneumonia.
Once he was feeling better, Pena told him he had to go.
Reached by The Times, Castillo, 36, admitted using injection drugs and having sex with other men but said he still isn't convinced that he transmitted the virus to Pena.
Even if he did, Castillo said, he doesn't feel sorry.
"It was just something that happened in life," he said. "Why should I feel bad? Eventually we all have to die."
Pena found free care at the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, where a doctor prescribed a drug cocktail. It has caused nightmares, nausea and drowsiness, but she doesn't complain: Her last T-cell count was 522 -- well above the threshold of 200 used to diagnose AIDS.
She had both children tested for the virus -- and, to her relief, both were negative. "At least my kids are OK," she said.
Pena told her children about her infection only last year. Christopher, 9, has mild autism. She doesn't think he understands.
Jessica, 11, asked if Pena was going to die. \o7No,\f7 Pena told her, \o7not as long as I take my medicine.
\f7"Even though she is still a kid, she has the mind of a grown-up," Pena said.
Jessica watches over her mom.
"Sometimes she forgets, like if she has to take her medicine," said Jessica, sitting on her bed, surrounded by stuffed animals. "I have to remind her."
Pena has been told she can't transmit the disease to her children just living side-by-side -- but just in case, they each have separate towels, brushes, shampoo and soap. They don't drink out of the same cups or eat from the same plates.
Whenever her children get sick, Pena worries that it might be HIV. When Jessica missed two days of school last week because of stomach pains, Pena took her to get tested again. She is awaiting the results.
Every day, Pena walks down the block to pick them up from school. On a recent afternoon, she rushed there after finishing her new part-time job, weaving baskets for $10 an hour.
"I hope they didn't walk home by themselves," she said, hurrying to Christopher's classroom.
