We were married in my parents’ living room in Boulder on Jan. 21, 2017, the day after Trump’s inauguration. This was not an accident. You might remember his “American carnage” speech, and we were worried about what would come next.
Because of my father’s illness, our wedding was a family-only affair, with my parents, my brothers, my wife’s cousin and her husband. My father threw up halfway through the ceremony. We did not talk about politics. We did not turn on the TV or see the Women’s March, although we learned about it later.
We filed our immigration paperwork that Monday.
In our first immigration interview, we stated all the embarrassing facts of our relationship under oath, mining our personal depths to prove our love. Yes, we met on Tinder. Yes, we stayed in a cheap Super 8 motel (it was dog-friendly) when we road-tripped to Las Vegas, choosing to spend our money on buffets and roller coasters. Yes, she sleeps on the right side of the bed.
The interviewer took notes. Detailed notes.
We used an interpreter for her part of the interview, not because she couldn’t speak English, but because she was so nervous that she feared she would say something wrong and be denied (or deported — that was our mind-set then). Instead, it was her interpreter who messed up, indicating through a series of miscommunications that she had willingly participated in a social-security scam. We were told she would have to come back the next day. Nerves. Sweat. Fear.
Somewhere in the records of our federal government is confirmation that my wife has never been nor attempted to be a terrorist, a communist, a human trafficker or a prostitute. She has never attempted to overthrow a government. She has never dealt in narcotics.
The government knows that she has brown hair and brown eyes, though I don’t think they know just how beautiful those eyes are. They know she is 5-foot-3, but they don’t know, and never asked, just how perfectly her body molds into mine, question-marked and curlicued in the shared bed of our home.
