Cat: Wait. One more question.
El Hubs: Make it good.
Cat: How did we fall in love?
El Hubs: (eye roll emoji) Seriously? Immigration isn’t going to care about that.
Cat: But what if they do?
He didn’t reply for a few moments, even though I saw the three dots typing. I took another sip of tea and my phone rang.
“Hey,” I answered.
“Hey, Cat Dog,” Dustin said, his voice gruff. “How did we fall in love? Really? They aren’t going to ask about that. You’ve been reading too many romance novels.”
Despite his answer, I could tell my question flustered him in some strange way. He was clearly putting a lot of thought intonotanswering.
“You literally asked me what my spirit animal was. And you’re critiquing my question?”
“Yeah, but I was joking. You’re serious. Right?”
I sucked in a deep breath. “They’ve been known to ask questions like that. I just wanted to get on the same page. And a guy like you ...”
I stammered over my words. I didn’t want to insult him, but I also didn’t want to dance around what I wanted to know.
“Have you ever been in love before?” I asked.
“No,” he said swiftly. “Have you?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Alright. So how did it happen?”
“I was sixteen and I was studying abroad in Ireland for the year. I don’t know, we just fell hard for each other. But then when I went back to Spain, he wrote me a letter about how it was over. And that was that.”
“That’s cute. Puppy love. Cat Dog love.”
“How about you?”
He cleared his throat. “I fell for someone and Ithoughtit was love. But it wasn’t.”
“That is the vaguest answer I’ve heard anyone give to love.”
“Next question,” he said, and I knew I had hit a wall.
“Let’s just roleplay real quick. I’ll be the immigration officer.” I cleared my throat to begin. “So, Mr. LeBlanc, it seems like you two fell in love quite quickly. How did that happen?”
He chuckled. “I really don’t believe they’re going to ask us nonsense like this. It’s going to be like, where did Dustin grow up? Middletown, Ohio, by the way. You still haven’t asked.”
“Please, just play along for two seconds.”
He let out an exasperated sigh.
I had to admit there was a side of me that was morbidly curious about this question—and not just because I had heard from a friend of a friend that she’d been asked this questionduring her green card interview. I was asking because I wanted to know,What made the Dustin LeBlancs of the world fall in love?
I didn’t quite understand him. And I wanted to.
“Well, Mr. Immigration Official,” Dustin began, and he was putting on some sort of rural accent that made me have to bite my lip to keep from laughing. He did it well. “Truth is, me and Catarina here go together like peas and carrots. Like cats and dogs. Like hamburgers and helpers.”
