Chapter 21 Olivier
Olivier
Five days before the honeymoon
I lasted two weeks. Two weeks during which I didn’t hold Reese in my arms, didn’t feel her soft skin against mine.
Two weeks during which I thought about her every minute of every day, picturing our future together.
We’d be happy in the city. Reese had this fire inside her, and I knew she’d do great things with her life if she gave it a real shot.
Cassie, on the other end, was lazy and entitled.
She’d also mostly given up on the pretense we were a couple.
One time, a few weeks back, we’d been standing outside when a neighbor walked past with his dogs.
Cassie had started introducing me, only to blank on my name.
Her freaking boyfriend’s name! This is, um…
Oliver, she’d said. Everyone I’d met here called me that, the English version.
Cassie never corrected them and I’d picked other battles.
But I hated it. It wasn’t that hard to call people by their names.
That day on the street, the man, Paul—see, not that hard!
—had been full of questions. Where was I from in France?
How long had I been in the States? Cassie had stared at me as I answered as calmly as possible.
It was like she didn’t know the answers, or didn’t care enough to pretend she might be interested in this conversation.
I’d given up on the idea we might announce an engagement and have that wedding she’d supposedly wanted.
I had never felt any kind of violent urge toward anyone, but that day, I’d wanted to slap Cassie.
Because I’d done my homework after our meeting with the lawyer.
I’d learned her birthday (May 7), her astrological sign (Gemini), her favorite food (burgers, how sophisticated), and what fragrance she wore (something chemically vanilla that made me feel nauseated, stupidly called Eau de Fantasy).
I bought her flowers. I cooked meals—not great ones, but I did. I tried.
And every day, I woke up with the head-throbbing fear of ICE stomping on the door. Cassie was going to destroy my future. I was certain of it. My only remaining option: ruin hers first.
And so, after two weeks of going crazy with want, I went to see Reese.
“I just want to talk,” I said as soon as I was certain no one could hear me. “Even if nothing I can say will change your mind. One more chance, and then I’ll leave you alone. I promise.”
She looked like me: tired, withdrawn, beaten.
At least that’s what I needed to believe, that she loved me as much as I did.
Loved me more than anyone else. Because otherwise, after I’d uttered the idea I’d come to share with her, I wouldn’t just be heartbroken.
I wouldn’t just be poor. I wouldn’t just be deported.
I’d be going to prison for a very long time.
“Not now,” she said. “Tomorrow afternoon I’m going to Kingston to run some errands…” She trailed off, barely looked at me.
I connected the dots in my mind. It was one of the bigger towns in the area, and we weren’t likely to run into people there. We’d be safe.
The wait was excruciating, but it did give me time to do more research, to explore every potential scenario. There were so many ways what I had in mind could go horribly wrong, but if it worked, oh, if it worked…freedom would never taste so good.
The next afternoon, I’d barely sat down in Reese’s car and closed the door before she was speeding ahead without even a glance at me.
“I love you,” I said, the words tumbling out of my mouth. “You have to believe me. I love you. I want to be with you. If I’d met you first—”
“You married her,” Reese said flatly.
“What if I wasn’t married to her anymore?”
Her eyes remained focused ahead, but I took note of the twitch her face made.
She let a few seconds pass and cleared her throat. “You told me you had to stay with her for two years, that you couldn’t get divorced before then. I’m not waiting for something that will never happen.”
I’d expected that. Of course Cassie and I would get divorced.
I knew that. But as long as I stayed with her, on paper anyway, Reese wouldn’t trust me.
She wouldn’t believe I loved her more, wanted to be with her more.
She’d been let down by guys too many times.
It was one thing when she thought we were simply dating, that I was Cassie’s guy du jour.
But Reese wasn’t going to be the longtime mistress in this scenario, and I couldn’t blame her.
“Cassie and I won’t stay married for the next two years,” I said.
We were leaving town now and I felt a little better, noticing the fields on either side, the emptiness. I couldn’t be too careful. Reese darted a glance at me. She was intrigued. She wouldn’t have agreed to meet if she wasn’t.
“We’re going to fail our interview with immigration,” I continued.
“It’ll never work. I’m sure of that now.
So that leaves me with two options. I could wait until that happens, risk having the Department of Homeland Security investigate our case further before deciding that I’m a fraud and kick me out of the country… ”
I paused and watched her hands grip the steering wheel, the way she held her breath.
“What’s the other option?” she said, after I let the silence settle between us.
Our eyes met for a split second. Hers were full of rage, of confusion. Despair also. Maybe. Hopefully.
It gave me enough courage to continue. “I researched all the immigration laws, the rules, the loopholes. I have to be married to an American citizen for at least two years to get a permanent green card so I can live and work here indefinitely. There’s no way around it.
If I divorce her now, I have to leave. Even if I married someone else, I’d have to start all over again.
That would take time and a lot of money. It would also look suspicious as hell.”
Again I waited, fear pooling at the bottom of my stomach.
“So there’s no other option,” Reese said.
“I’d marry you in a heartbeat,” I said, suddenly realizing how presumptuous it was of me to assume she’d want that. Reese had been on her own one way or another for a long time. She didn’t need anyone. Still, I chose to believe she wanted me.
“This is all about you wanting to stay here,” she said. “In the States, I mean. You could go back to France…” She trailed off again but not before she glanced at me.
“I can’t. I need to stay away. I don’t even want to step foot in the country, not until I’ve sorted myself out.”
There was another reason: I couldn’t stop thinking about the money, which steadily seeped through Cassie’s hands.
I saw the shopping bags, the bottles of liquor, the receipts for expensive meals with her friends, the new iPhone.
She was talking about buying a new car. She gave me cash every time I said I needed to get supplies for the inn and never asked for the change. If we divorced, I’d get nothing.
I swallowed hard. I had one card to play and the time had come. “There is another option. Everything would be different if I were a widower.”
Reese slammed her foot on the brake and the car shrieked to a stop, jerking both of us forward, then backward. I felt the wind knocked out of me. There was no one in front of us. No cars, no animals, no reason she did that. We were just stopped in the middle of an empty road.
Reese turned to me, her eyes wild with shock. “If you were a widower?”
I couldn’t breathe anymore but I had to get the words out.
“If Cassie was…not alive, I could keep going with my application as I am now. With Cassie out of the way, I could make our ‘love story’ real. I read the fine print. Immigration laws have a provision for foreign spouses of American citizens after they die. The government doesn’t kick them out of the country just because their loved one passed away before the green card process is complete. ”
Reese’s breathing grew ragged, but she said nothing.
So I finished my thought, nailed my own coffin shut. “I’d still be living here legally as her widower. I’d be in mourning. Devastated. I’d stay in the house. We…you and I, we could do everything we’ve been doing, just as quietly. And then—”
Reese wasn’t throwing me out of the car. She wasn’t screaming that I was a psychopath who was proposing murder. In this bizarre and twisted world I now found myself in, there was hope. But also, she wasn’t starting the car again. We were still stuck in the middle, both literally and figuratively.
“We could date openly, not right away, but in a few months. People grieve in strange ways. Things happen. It wouldn’t be so hard to accept that you and I might fall in love.”
A loud honk resonated behind us, and we both turned around to see a huge truck way back in the distance.
Reese put her hand on the ignition, but still didn’t drive off. “I can’t tell if you’re being serious right now. You’re talking about…” She gulped.
I spoke quickly. “I’m talking about being with you. After everything has blown over, we could get married. We’d be happy. Tell me you don’t think you and I could be happy together.”
The honks got louder but Reese was frozen in space.
“I love you, Reese. If you want to be with me, I could…”
She didn’t blink. “You could…”
I spoke faster now, the words tumbling out. “The stairs in the house, they’re uneven. Someone could easily trip and fall all the way to the bottom. I researched it; people die in the stupidest ways: Gas leaks. Car failures. Accidents.”
Reese inhaled and exhaled deeply. The truck got even closer. For a moment I thought this might be it for us. We might die right here and now. “We could be together. You and me, no one else. I love you and you’re not saying no. You’re not telling me to stop.”
Her breathing grew even heavier. “I love you, too. I freaking love you, too.”
And then she started the car.
***