Chapter 6 #2
He retrieved his totally respectable amount of mail, and walked out of the mail room without so much as acknowledgement I walk on the same earth.
He seems to save that for late nights when he shows up at my door to remind me that I am the bane of his existence.
(And not in a good Bridgerton way.) Mrs Saraceno and I just stood there chatting as she told me all about her newest addition, the chocolate Pomeranian she’s naming Hermes.
(Who definitely bit me when I went to pet him, but I didn’t have the heart to tell her that.)
“That's why you never responded to my birthday card.”
“You sent me a birthday card?” I lurch forward and practically bring the phone to my nose with skepticism.
But he just breaks into laughter, his friends on the street around him break into a chorus of happy birthday.
(Which was last week.) My birthday came and went with cake, Friends in the form of Ross and Emily’s wedding, friends in the form of Toby and Chandler, and streamers that are still hung up behind me.
“You would know that if you just checked your mail.” He says the last three words with individual, pointed weight.
“I'll check it tonight,” I say, mostly to make him stop. He does this regularly. Calls me to remind me to do the things that many people just do naturally. Make a doctor's appointment, renew your car registration, check your mail… It annoys me at my core, mainly because it feels like some kind of personal deficiency to operate in the adult world. Our brains just never worked the same, and doing a task as simple as checking my mail can feel like I’m holding my hand over the hot burner on the stove, telling myself to lay it flat. I just… can’t.
“Tonight,” he repeats, like a verbal contract.
"Tonight," I respond, my eyes bulging hoping to emphasize the ‘I got it’ that I’m not saying. (And praying I actually do, got it.)
The call winds down with an update on our parents, Dad's new woodworking phase, Mum's book club, the general comfortable retirement of two people who have decided that England suits them and always did despite their stint in the States. And then, with the intention of trying to sound subtle, when in fact he is just drunk and interested, “How are things at the coffee shop?” The pause before coffee shop is infinitesimal and damning. What he’s actually asking about is really a who.
I just roll my eyes and start talking about Toby’s new tracking of almond versus oat milk selections and how it might indicate political party.
But Theo is very clearly uninterested, his focus is singular, and it’s not Toby’s alternate milk model that he’s curious about.
Finally giving him the small morsel he’s after.
“Chandler is fine, she has an art show coming up,” I say. I don’t exactly know when they started this game of long distance flirting, but I get to play middle man while they pretend that’s not what's happening because it ‘logistically doesn’t make sense.’
“I'm asking about the coffee shop generally. You know I have an interest in small businesses.”
“You have an interest in three things, Theo. And two of them are rugby.” I hear a call from his friends as they stumble their way down the street.
“Goodnight, Lou.” He’s still grinning when the call ends. The sound of Chandler’s name is usually enough to tide him over until we speak again.
The paper chains and streamers from my birthday are still pinned to the ceiling, I keep meaning to take them down and keep not doing it, both because they make me happy and because taking them down would require getting on a chair and I haven’t been in the mood for the level of follow-through.
I told Theo I’d check the mail tonight, which means I have to check the mail tonight because he will call me tomorrow to confirm.
I am a bad liar under normal circumstances and a catastrophically bad liar to my brother, who has known me since before I even had a personality to hide things behind.
Leaving me no options but to get up. I find my shoes, one under the couch, one somehow in the kitchen, and I take the elevator down to the mail room where my mailbox, sure enough, has the aggressive OVERSTUFFED Post-it stuck to it. (Rude.)
I pull the small door open and an avalanche of envelopes and catalogs and what appears to be a rolled-up magazine unfolds itself into my arms. I gather it all against my chest, it’s physical comedy.
As I am the master of this exact problem and I’m now suffering through it.
Even by my standards, this is a lot of mail.
Upstairs, I clear the coffee table and sit cross-legged on the floor and begin to sort.
Utility bills on autopay (Good job, past Lou.) I set those aside.
Credit card offers, no. (Good job, current Lou.) A catalog from Restoration Hardware, which arrives because of the afternoon Chandler and I spent sitting on cloud couches we can’t afford and apparently gave them my address, which I do not regret because even though I love the green, lumpy one I’ve got, those couches were transcendent.
(Maybe for future Lou.) A birthday card from my brother makes this all worth it.
But what’s behind it has me stop.
The envelope is white and bureaucratic, my full name is visible through the plastic window, Evans, Louisa J., printed in the font of government correspondence. Which if I had any doubt about, the return address in the upper left corner in small, unambiguous letters confirms it.
USCIS. United States Citizenship and Immigration Services.
Strange, I think. My father always handled these things.
It was his visa that carried the family when we moved here, and then mine evolved with me, student status growing as I grew, and I signed whatever forms arrived, vague and unexamined, and assumed it was all fine.
He’s in England now, and has been for two years.
They encouraged me to return with them, the doubt and criticism I could support myself on my own was the main reasoning.
I read it once, quickly, because my instincts (which aren’t always great) immediately flagged it as important, before my brain even had the space to catch up.
Then I read it again, slowly, with deliberate attention, trying to locate the part where this isn’t as bad as it looks. But I don’t find that part. In fact, the more I read it, the worse it looks. And Theo’s birthday card isn’t enough to pretend otherwise.
NOTICE OF EXPIRATION OF STATUS.
The language is bureaucratic and cold, designed to communicate facts without implication of feeling, which has the paradoxical effect of making the feelings hit harder because there’s no softening in the words to absorb them.
Nonimmigrant status expired. (Like milk?!)
Derivative eligibility terminated. (Derivative of WHAT?!)
Unlawful presence. (I’m against the LAW?!)
The phrase sounds meaner than it has to.
‘Unlawful presence.’ As if I am an intrusion.
As if the years I have lived here, the life I have built here, the specific geography of my entire adult existence, is something happening without permission.
I HAD PERMISSION! I have a job, and a driver's license, I even pay taxes!
But the expiration date is in the past. I read it again, thinking I’ve made a mistake, (which I clearly have) but it’s not my reading comprehension that’s in error.
The date on the letter is over sixty days old.
It has been sitting in my mailbox between a Restoration Hardware catalog and a credit card offer for sixty-something days, and I have been living my life, unlawfully.
‘Failure to comply may result in formal removal proceedings.’ I know they don’t mean black tie.
My breathing changes and I see it coming from a mile away.
The panic rolling in, something tightening in my chest that has nothing to do with my lungs and everything to do with the word removal sitting on the page in front of me.
I open my laptop because this feels like the kind of emergency that requires a larger screen.
I type with shaking hands.
‘Punishments for overstayed visas’
‘Is the government mad at me for overstaying my visa’
‘What happens if you overstay a visa’
‘Resolution for overstayed visa UK national who didn’t know they overstayed their visa and are very sorry’
‘What is unlawful presence’