To Stay In The Country My Love Needed Me To Marry Her. I Didn't.
Opportunity is rarely perfect. You can't always wait for it.
Cold reached the Southwest early.
I dug hands into denim pockets, clawing for warmth my legs could not give. The flimsy jacket collar did little to protect my neck. I shuddered. A premonition of things to come.
Snow drifted from the gray above. The fat flakes took their time falling to the earth, unsure if they’d melt on impact. Sometimes it’s necessary to take a leap of faith.
My leg vibrated. A text message. Nobody knew my location. Nobody except one person. The woman I’d loved for years, yet had seen fewer times than one-handed fingers over the past decade.
I pulled both hand and phone from their flimsy sheath of warmth. Her number. An international number she’d always had. At least since the one time, we made love in Miami ten-years earlier. The number she gave me as I watched her depart the International terminal for her flight back to the Middle East. To a life away from me. At least physically. Mentally, emotionally, spiritually, she remained with me. Always.
I reached the opposite side of the crosswalk when I checked the message. I’m glad I waited until reaching the sidewalk. If I hadn’t I would have froze, a motionless statue, in the middle of the street.
I turned the phone off, pinching the bridge of my nose, hoping to reset what I just saw. What I just read. I flicked on my phone and checked the message again. To make sure I didn’t miss a word. I didn’t alter the meaning. It read as I thought it did. That we shouldn’t see each other again. That we couldn’t. What would it accomplish? What would it achieve?
I slipped the phone back into my pocket. My hand shook, but not from the cold. And slipping it back into my pants or coat wouldn’t change that. The woman I loved, the woman I’d loved for so long, was marrying another, and there wasn’t anything I could do.
***
“I know someone,” she started as we walked, “that will marry me if necessary.”
Until earlier that day I hadn’t seen her in years. Since the day she boarded the flight out of Miami. Since before the beginning, and conclusion, of her first marriage.
I thought we’d talked about anything and everything since receiving a call from her international phone number. The number with a Middle Eastern country code. Apparently, we hadn’t.
“In case I’m not able to extend my visa.”
Already on borrowed time, we both knew she wouldn’t receive an extension. With COVID shutting down embassy visits and extension requests, she already had her return flight bumped several months. The borders closed into her home country, she remained in the states until that changed.
“I don’t like that idea,” I told her.
I didn’t. I didn’t like the idea of someone else marrying her. I wanted to. But I didn’t want it to be an illusion. A branch as she grasped at straws to stay. I wanted it to be for love. To give her a true proposal. An unexpected gesture that sent goosebumps from the back of her arms up to her brain.
“Well, it doesn’t have to be him. It can be someone else.”
“I just don’t like it.”
She didn’t bring it up again.
It could have been someone else. It could have been me. But my head, lost in ideas of grandeur and false realities, failed to see what really stood in front of me. Whether head in the ground or head in the clouds, it’s impossible to see what’s around.
***
She went through with it.
As her country of origin set a return date, she needed a way to stay. Due to a number of circumstances, she couldn’t return. If she did, she knew she’d never make it back out.
So the person she knew agreed. Not a friend. Not someone who loved her. Just someone. Forced to walk down a lightless tunnel, I let her go alone. Too busy considering what we could do at the end.
I thought it was only paper. It was only a signature. That she could say a thoughtless “I do,” and then be free to be with me. Be free to let us cultivate in ways we never had the opportunity to. We’d only seen each other for days, or hours, on end for the past 15 years. I wanted dinner dates and walks through the park. I wanted Saturday nights watching movies and laughing until we cried.
I wanted.
I could have had it. If only it was me that signed that paper. Because it’s not just some piece of paper.
***
I had departed home for my drive to the southwest. To where she was. We’d talked often about what we’d do when I arrived. I’d looked forward to nothing else as much as I looked forward to finally making it to the Southwest.
I booked a hotel for the first night. So she could stay with me. So I could be with her. That first night we walked some, talked more, but nothing of consequence. I asked about the signed marriage document. She didn’t want to talk about it. At the end of the night, she left. She didn’t stay, saying something important was scheduled early in the morning. When I fell asleep I had no idea I wouldn’t see her again.
Snow fell on the valley. I woke up to a chill. Not prepared for the cold I tossed on a denim jacket and made a half-mile walk to the mall to try and find something warmer to wear.
But I didn’t make the mall. The text came half-way there.
It wasn’t just a document, I learned. It wasn’t just some piece of paper she could sign and magically stay. She had to move in with him. Know intimate details about him. So when Immigration came calling, it wouldn’t appear to be a green-card marriage. It needed to be, for all visual accounts, real.
I told her I wish she’d come out and asked me to do it. I would have said yes. She said she wished I would have asked, and that she didn’t want to put forceful pressure onto me, to feel obligated to do so.
She didn’t outright ask. I wasn’t listening. And I didn’t know it was more than just a signed piece of paper. Maybe I did but the dream of a perfect relationship and a perfect proposal and a perfect marriage blocked all that out. Perfect never defined our relationship. The word never entered the conversation. Not sure why it would have then.
She told me it could take years for everything to go through. For it to be official. There would be no purpose for us to continue talking. To continue planning.
I’ve gone years without seeing her. From the last time I saw her in middle school to our time in Miami, a full decade went by. Five years was nothing. But this time, it didn’t feel like nothing. A lot could happen. A marriage-for-appearances could very much turn into a marriage-for-real.
I had the opportunity. But I had my eyes on the future, not the present. She had asked me to take a leap of faith. I was waiting to get to the other side.
Now, there likely will be no other side.
***
If there’s one thing I’ve learned, if there’s one thing you should take from this, it’s love is seldom perfect. It’s strange and it’s twisted and it may subvert the direction you believe it should go. But that’s what makes the ride of love so interesting. So thrilling. Because it can drop when you least expect it.
Now, if you’re listening, if you’re truly paying attention, you might be able to figure out where it’s taking you. And when you’re forced to take a leap of faith, if you truly love the person, take it.
Don’t end up on a sidewalk, in the snow, holding a cell phone of lost dreams.
Oh I know the feeling. The first time I fell I love I was 15. He was 15 and our world turned on the touch, smile and laugh of each other. A little like Romeo and Juliet; I was from a good family, he wasn’t. I remember my father taking him into his study at home for an interview of sorts. This was after I’d run away from home to be with him. Well to be with another guy but we fell in love during my rebellion. Remember I was only 15! After the police found me my parents threatened him with charges or carnal knowledge though we hadn’t done more than kissed. My dad got him a job and soon after I left home again and we moved in together. We were together for two years and then I got restless. I was young and didn’t see our love could last. So I started another relationship and ended it with my first love. Shortly after I discovered I was pregnant and he could have been the father. I’ll never know as my current partner pressured me to have a termination. I was 17 and thought I loved this new young man enough to make such a sacrifice for him. I soon realised my heart lay with my first love and ended it. We talked on the phone all the time despite him being in a new relationship and expecting a child of his own. We wanted to be together so badly it hurt however he had been abandoned as a young boy and didn’t want his child to experience that. He wanted to be a dad who was there for his son. Soon after this I got a phone call which changed my life. Jeff had taken his life the night before. He’d locked his partner in a room downstairs and shot himself. He was only 17. I had just turned 18 and this began my spiral into drugs and alcohol. His funeral was the first I had ever been to and it was so hard though I attended with his family. My parents drove me the half a days drive to get there and we stayed overnight. I drank Jack Daniels in his honour and unknowingly sat in the chair he’d died in. I’m now about to turn 50 and he’s still in my heart. Some love just never dies and he’s forever in my heart. I’ve always wanted to find his son so I can tell him how amazingly brave, handsome and strong his dad was. I only have his name and relative age to go on though I’ve never given up hope. I held him as a young newborn and he’s his fathers son. The same eyes stared back at me that night. He was so handsome and despite our love being beautifully chaotic it was my first and it was pure. He spoiled me for many partners to come. I’ve just celebrated one year in recovery and finally doing something with my life. Jeff is only in my dreams now. I’ve forgotten his voice and that’s painful. However that’s my life and he made it richer for the two years he was in it. His photos are in a box in my garage as are clothes we both wore from that time. I can never throw them out. Love is tough at times though so incredibly beautiful and leaves an imprint on our hearts. I celebrate him and am so thankful for the time we spent together. Yet I’m also angry. Angry he left me with that huge hole in my heart and my life. I have healed though I’ve never ever forgotten the intense way we loved each other. Like we fit in all the right places. I don’t really know why I’ve written all this and I don’t expect you to read it. It’s just made me feel better to share this poignant story with another who knows how precious love really is. Thank you for your words x