Atlanta to see him the next day.

At first, Frances didn't worry much about the call. Stephen had run a marathon that year and had a muscled body from years of shouldering women as a cheerleader at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. But as the day unfolded, she started to wonder about the urgent calls, the tiny tremble in his voice.

Pneumonia in young, healthy men was uncommon, and she knew from her days volunteering at the hospital that it was typically linked to something more deadly. Pneumocystis pneumonia crept into the bodies of people with weakened immune systems -- people in the last stages of AIDS.

This family portrait from nearly 40 years ago harks back to a simpler, more innocent time and shows the Nevelses in their Sundaybest. Pictured are, from left, Tim, Matt, Stephen, Frances, Keith and Vicki.

Then another thought came.

The year before, Stephen had come home to bury his roommate, with whom he had moved from Chattanooga to Atlanta. Everyone said the young man had died of Crohn's disease.

Then another thought came.

AIDS could show up in blood-transfusion recipients, drug users or babies, but its most common victims were men who had sex with other men. But her son wouldn't have sex with other men, she thought. Her son wasn't gay.

Was he?

That night she asked her son Keith if he knew anything about Stephen that she should know before she and Matt went to Atlanta. Was there anything she should tell his father?

What Keith said shocked her.

So she walked to the study where Matt