The envelope was thick, heavy, and official. It was the kind of mail we had been waiting for with bated breath for three years. I saw the government seal in the mailbox and let out a squeal of delight.
“It’s here!” I shouted, running into the living room where my husband, Mateo, was watching TV. “It’s finally here!”
For three years, our marriage had been lived under the microscope of immigration interviews, paperwork, and the constant, low-level hum of anxiety. I had held his hand through it all. We were married for three years. I had learned his language. I had defended our love to skeptical friends. I had signed the affidavit of support without hesitation because I thought we were soulmates.
I handed him the envelope. He opened it slowly. He pulled out the document. It was the confirmation. His permanent citizenship status was approved.
I threw my arms around him, tears stinging my eyes. “We did it, baby! We’re safe. No more forms. No more fear.”
I expected him to hug me back. I expected him to cry, or laugh, or spin me around.
Instead, he stood perfectly still.
I pulled back, confused. The warmth had vanished from his eyes. It was as if a light switch had been flicked off behind his pupils. He came home cold and distant.
“Mateo?” I asked, my smile faltering. “What’s wrong?”
He carefully folded the letter and placed it in his back pocket. He looked at me not with love, nor even with anger, but with the blank indifference of a customer who has finished a meal and is ready to leave the restaurant.
“‘I’m moving out,’” he said, his voice steady and unrecognizable.
The room spun. “What? moving out? But… we just got the good news. We can finally start our life.”
He shook his head. “No,” he corrected me. “I can finally start my life.”
He walked past me to the bedroom and pulled a suitcase from the closet—a suitcase that, I realized with a sick lurch, was already half-packed.
“‘The goal is complete,’” he stated simply, zipping the bag shut.
I stood frozen in the hallway. The phrase hung in the air like a blade. The goal. Not the marriage. Not the relationship. The goal.
I watched him walk out the front door without looking back. He didn’t say goodbye. He didn’t say he was sorry. He just left, taking his new legal status with him.
I sank onto the floor, the echo of the slamming door ringing in my ears. I looked at the empty space where my husband used to be and finally understood the transaction that had just occurred. He hadn’t fallen out of love. He had simply finished the job. I wasn’t his wife; I was his immigration paperwork. And now that he had the stamp of approval, I was just another completed form to be filed away and forgotten.
