The prayer rug was soft under my knees, but the words were still foreign on my tongue. I recited them anyway. I did it for him.
My father hadn’t spoken to me in four years. When I told him I was converting, he told me I was losing my soul. I walked out of my childhood home and never looked back, convinced that love was a higher power than any tradition. I defied my parents and converted to his religion to marry him.
I didn’t just give him my faith; I gave him my country.
The process was grueling. The interviews, the background checks, the endless forms where I swore he was the love of my life. I sponsored his citizenship. I vouched for his character. I put my own legal standing on the line to ensure he could stay here with me.
For a while, it felt worth it. We were happy for three years. We built a routine. We talked about buying a house. I thought we were building a foundation. I didn’t realize I was just the scaffolding.
The envelope arrived on a Tuesday. It was thick and official. The Permanent Resident Card. The ten-year pass. The “Golden Ticket.”
I put it on the kitchen table, imagining his face when he saw it. I cooked his favorite meal. I waited.
The food went cold. The clock ticked past midnight.
The week his permanent green card arrived in the mail, he didn’t come home.
I called his phone. Straight to voicemail. Panic set in. I thought he was hurt. I thought he had been detained.
Then I saw the piece of paper on the nightstand. It wasn’t a love letter. It was a transaction receipt.
He left a note: “Thanks for the help.”.
I stared at the words, my stomach churning. Help? I hadn’t helped him move a couch; I had legally bound my life to his.
Then I read the second line, the one that erased the last three years of my life.
“‘My real girlfriend is moving here next month.’“.
I collapsed onto the bed. He hadn’t just used me for a visa; he had used me as a placeholder. He had an entire other life, a “real” love, waiting in the wings while I played the role of the useful idiot who could navigate the bureaucracy. I had sacrificed my family and my identity to save a man who was only waiting for the ink to dry so he could replace me with the woman he actually wanted.
