My heart melted. I didn’t miss the “Aunt” or “Auntie” that they used to add before my name when they were little; it made me feel old.
“Love you, too, sweetie,” I replied. “Tell Will hi for me.” His twin brother was in a relationship, too, and last I heard, he was planning on proposing to her.Too young, I thought, but what did I know? At nineteen, they probably knew better than I did at my age.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I was going over my mail three weeks later when my heart first skipped a beat then sprinted at the sight of both my name and Angelo’s on a white envelope bearing the Immigration office logo.
“Mr. & Mrs. Marchesi,” the letter opened.
Shit.
I picked up the phone and called Jerry.
After my slightly choked-out, “Hey,” I told him that we had been called in for an interview.
“Didn’t Angelo get it, as well?” I asked. “There’s almost no time.”
“His address is registered as your address, remember?”
My heart plummeted yet again.Of course!It was as if my mind was trying to block out everything about him, including his name with mine on the envelope and theMr. & Mrs.printed in black ink on white paper inside.
“Tell him we need to meet—urgently.”
I hung up and remained frozen, standing next to my kitchen sink.
Looking around my little apartment, I knew it looked exactly like a single woman’s home. There were zero signs of a male living here, despite what the utility bills we had submitted to Immigration said. Zero. No clothes in the closet, nothing in the laundry basket, no pictures, no shoes by the bed, and no food in the fridge that would satisfy more than one person living on sprouts, seeds, greens, vegetables, fruit, oatmeal, and tofu.
Hurrying to the console next to the entrance, I pulled out the framed picture of me and Angelo outside City Hall, wondering where to place it, as if Immigration were just outside my door. Jerry had delivered that picture printed and framed to my place a week after City Hall.
Why did they ask us to come for an interview? Were we randomly picked, or did they suspect something?
The letter obviously didn’t say. Must have been our age differences. That was what I had told Jerry when he had initially put the offer out to me—that with a ten-year age gap, no one would believe this marriage was bona fide.
The letter had been sent a week ago but got to me only now. That didn’t leave us much time to prepare. I knew they could spring an interview on you or even do a bed check, just dropping by one early morning to see who opened the door and who lived at the given address.
What if they knock on my door tomorrow morning?a heart-stopping question burst on me.
Get a grip!
I had a mental checklist of actions that I felt compelled to stick to, as futile as they seemed right now, like placing that picture of Angelo leaning his head against mine with both of us smiling on the nightstand, next to the bed I had been sleeping in alone for the past ten years.
I then rummaged through the bedside drawer and found the wedding ring that had been laying there for two months. I slipped it on. Then, on second thought, I took it off and put it in my purse so I wouldn’t forget it before the interview.
Running through that checklist, I wondered if I should ask Tammy for some of Danny’s clothes. I could put them in my closet and throw a shirt on the chair by the vanity so it’d look like a man lived here. My sister knew I sometimes offered secondhand clothes in a corner of my shop, so she wouldn’t find such a request bizarre. But surely, if we passed this interview in their offices in San Francisco, I wouldn’t need to worry about Immigration coming here.
I thought about the things we had decided not to do, like opening a joint bank account, after Jerry’s lawyer advised us not to, “because it looks suspicious if there’s no real action there.”
From one of the kitchen drawers, I took out a pack of stickers and wrote, “Angelo Marchesi,” on one. This would go on my mailbox in case government officials ever did come here for inspection.
I’d need to find an excuse for my talkative mailman, who was probably already curious by the envelope ascribed to a Mr. & Mrs. How would I explain it to my sisters if they stopped by? At least I didn’t have to worry about nosy neighbors. I owned this part of the building—my shop on the street level and my apartment above it. No one shared this entrance; therefore, my mailbox was the only one there and hidden from public sight.
“They might interview your neighbors,” the attorney Jerry had connected me with had said when I had been considering his offer. Jerry and I had agreed that, if necessary, I could white-lie to my neighbors and relatives and say that Angelo was a friend who was between apartments. And if confronted for this lie by the USCIS, I could say that I didn’t want people to judge me for marrying a younger man. At least that part was true.
I prayed no one would find out until I obtained the divorce and it was all behind me.
The weight of the lie, of the fraud I had committed with my eyes wide open, sunk on me like a ten-ton truck.
I had to count on my ability to keep a poker face. It had carried me through life and, hopefully, would come in handy with government officials. “Yes, we’re in love. He’s away on business in San Francisco a lot, and I miss him,” I would say and smile. “He’s the love of my life.” And, “We met online. Tinder,” I’d add with another smile. Nah, we’d stick to the truth and say we met via Jerry.
