Page 45 of The Warmth of Our Closest Star

Everything would be okay.

“I’m sorry,” I said, turning my head to stare out the passenger window. “I can buy new clothes if necessary. I don’t have much money, but I will have a job eventually. I cannot replace that box, Peter.”

He brought my hand to his mouth and kissed the back of it passionately.

“We’ll have that box in two days. Just like the airline said,” Peter stated. “If we don’t, I will tear this city apart for you finding it. I promise. However, you do have your own things and your own money. Our things and our money. It’s not your things or my things or your money or my money, it’s our things and money. I’ve been telling you this for two years. Remember? We can go buy a few essentials tonight so that you won’t feel like you have nothing. We’ll solve this problem together.”

I smiled. We’d been married for almost two years—one ceremony in Montreal, and then another in Minneapolis—but I still struggled with combining our lives. Especially money. Having almost nothing to my name, it felt unfair to expect Peter to share everything he had with me. Hopping from one socioeconomic class to one much higher seemed unfair since I hadn’t earned it. Marriage should not be the determining factor for a person’s financial security, no matter their circumstances or biology.

“Okay.”

There was no other way to respond. Peter was right. Even if I didn’t love it. However, I loved that Peter considered us a team.

“So, cheer up,” Peter demanded playfully. “You’re finally home, babe!”

Babe. Peter’s little term of endearment that had, at first, felt juvenile, made me smile. First uttering it as we walked out of the Palais de Justice in Montreal as legal husbands—at least in Canada—I’d cringed when Peter had used the term of endearment. It felt infantilizing. Over nearly two years of hearing him use it on our many visits to each other, conversations on the phone, in our text messages and emails, and after our second and final marriage at the courthouse in Minneapolis, it had grown on me.

It wasn’t that I learned to love the term or that it felt less juvenile as time wore on. I’d simply begun to pay attention to Peter when he used the term for me. The way his eyes lit up. How he couldn’t keep a smile from forming on his face when he said it. The sheer joy at uttering the term—as if he was staking claim to me—warmed me to it. Peter had shown his ability to feel joy many times before, but I’d never seen him as joyous as when he called me “babe.” I couldn’t really hate the term when I realized that.

Our first civil marriage—at the Palais de Justice in Montreal was as romantic as such things can be. Paperwork, birth certificates, signing of forms, meeting with officials, and then standing before one to be married as Monsieur Paquette, my ESL teacher, played witness. Afterward, Monsieur Paquette insisted on taking us out to a nice dinner at Le Canard Parasseux, since it held special significance in our “love story.” Newly widowed, Monsieur Paquette was glad to have company for dinner after such an event.

Over another incredible meal, Peter and I regaled our witness with stories of our meeting, our one perfect night together, and everything that had led to Peter’s proposal. Our witness informed us he was set to embark on a months-long trip across Europe. A gift to himself to celebrate his retirement. Monsieur Paquette and Peter shared many glasses of wine and I ate jubilantly, even as my belly flipped and flopped with the knowledge that I, Enzo Barbier, was a husband. I had my own family. When the three of us left The Lazy Duck, my new husband and my ESL teacher raucous and laughing from all of the wine, Peter accompanied me to my apartment. A marriage must be consummated, after all.

Peter had only been able to fly to Montreal for a few days during the week in order for us to get officially married in Canada. We made the most we could of those few days, but Peter eventually returned to the U.S. Again, I was alone in Canada, and he was alone in the U.S.

The following month, I flew to Minneapolis for a few days so that we could begin to establish citizenship for me through our marriage in Canada and to get married at the Minneapolis courthouse. Our marriage in Montreal was legal in Canada. Our marriage in Minneapolis gave us some rights in Minnesota. However, since Peter and I were interested in securing United States citizenship for me, things became more difficult. Marriage equality had not been passed on a federal level yet. The state of Minnesota might not have balked at my moving to the U.S. to be with my husband, but this offered me no protections from the United States government if they wished to deport me back to Canada.

Our immigration lawyer, whom Peter had hired for more money than is seemly, had insisted that we establish residence in the U.S. for me as soon as we could after we were married. None of us were sure if marriage equality would ever pass in the U.S., or if it didn’t, if the U.S. courts would uphold our Canadian marriage and allow us to live together as husbands in the U.S. once we completed all of the necessary steps. Even upon its passing, marriage equality didn’t ensure my citizenship. However, our lawyer knew that beginning the steps immediately would keep things from being delayed—and would make citizenship more likely—if and when the time came that marriage equality passed.

Not that it is uncommon knowledge, but the immigration process in the United States is rigorous, biased, discriminatory, and unfair. It is also costly. These things are sometimes mutually exclusive. If you have money, it can cancel out all of the other impediments. With our high-powered, costly lawyer, we were assured that securing my citizenship would only be a “matter of time.”

Our lawyer was right. As soon as Peter and I were married in Canada, I flew to the U.S., claimed residence at his home with a ridiculous amount of paperwork our lawyer provided, and claimed that I would be living in Canada for periods of time due to my work. And we got married at the courthouse in Minneapolis. Our lawyer made it clear that I would need to travel back to the U.S. and stay at least one week every six months, never letting more than five months and twenty days pass between visits. Otherwise, we would have to start all over.

So, that is what we did.

One would think that getting to see each other more, what with all of our visits back and forth between our two countries, Peter and I would have been happy. However, knowing we were husbands, and having our time together cruelly parceled out by arbitrary laws and regulations, each time we had to leave each other was torture. Every time that one of us had to board a plane, we struggled to let go of each other. To not cry and upset each other. Our first two years of marriage were filled with sorrow and longing.

And far too much phone sex. Though, is there ever too much?

Governments do not care that their rules separate people who love each other. They do not care about the emotional trauma they inflict on those who are bonded by love or blood. They love their rules. That is what they are beholden to; not the people whom they are meant to serve and nurture.

Then marriage equality was passed in the United States. Our American marriage was not valid. And then it was. In an instant.

And I got the call.

As with most major events in my life, food plays a central role. It was a Friday night after a long week at work where I had raced along the halls of the office building where I worked all day long, delivering messages and packages and fetching and getting for people with much higher salaries than mine. To make up for a difficult week, I had roasted chicken and made a large pan of the most decadent and silky cacio e pepe. I’d served a large portion of the chicken atop the pasta—like a barbarian—and had curled up on my secondhand sofa in my pajamas, prepared to watch something romantic and silly as I ate my dinner.

When I answered my phone, I could barely understand Peter over the sounds of his tears and sniffles.

It happened, Enzo. Come home. You can come home to me.

Much of the rest of the phone call I cannot remember. Other than the tears and laughter and proclamations of love and excitement. I had turned my television to the news, and well into the night, Peter and I had watched the world celebrate the United States declare that love…really is love. That Peter and I were as valid as any other couple.

That we were actually husbands.

The pasta and chicken had gone cold by the time Peter and I ended our phone call. It was still one of the best meals I’d ever eaten. I didn’t even watch the movie I had intended to watch that evening. No romantic comedy could compare to my life at that moment.

After washing the dishes and storing the leftover food in the refrigerator for weekend meals, I shuffled through my apartment. I didn’t know it then, but I was already beginning my “goodbye.” And, as I paced around the five rooms that had once held so much grief and sorrow, I found that I was sad to let it go.