"Why is it always like this with you?"

  Ezra asks this in such a way that I flinch, as if he'd opened the diary I wrote in last night and read it. We're getting ready to go to the bar, the first time we'll see Georgie and Kate since the wedding.

  "What does that mean?"

  He doesn't like the T-shirt he's wearing. He takes it off and puts it aside. "Just like this." He gestures somewhere in the middle of the two of us. I look at his face, still not understanding what he means. "Come on, you know that."

  I sigh. I sit down on the couch. Yes, I think I know too. Or wait, do I know? Within two seconds, thoughts start running around in my mind. Do I really know?

  In a moment of anger, I rise up, "What do I know? Do I know where you've been for days?"

  He frowns. He sits on the couch next to me, but there is a space between us for one more person to sit. He leans his back against the armrest and turns his head towards me. "That's not the point now, you know. I'm talking about something else."

  I fold my arms across my chest. "So tell me, how are things between us?"

  "Look, I'm not saying this to hurt you, okay? It's just, I don't know. Just when it seems like everything's going to work out and you're acting like a stubborn goat..."

  Before he's even finished, I meet his eyes and I'm like, "Or maybe just when everything's going well, you disappear? Or maybe just when everything feels like it's going well, you decide to be hostile to me? Or maybe just when I'm thinking that nothing is fine, you dress me up like a Barbie doll and use me to make your ex jealous?" I'm surprised that I can say all this in one breath, almost in one breath, and with so much anger. My cheeks turn red with anger.

  He seems to shy away from my anger. I can see it in the way he stands up. "Wow, what you've kept inside. Look at it from my point of view. A stranger has been living in my house for months. She tells me she ran away from her family and came here, but there is no sign of a family member looking for her. Right after she gets close to me, I find a photo of me and my ex-girlfriend in her room and in her suitcase. Without hesitation, she pulls out the money I haven't earned in months and gives it to me..."

  "Hey! That was the deal. You needed money and I needed a US passport!"

  "Why? Why did you need this passport so badly? In this day and age, no one can force anyone to marry..."

  "I'm sorry if my story is too painful to be true!"

  "I didn't mean it that way!"

  Now we're both yelling. It is Ezra who realizes that we are too loud to hear the door. He runs to the door. He looks through the hole without opening it. He looks at me, his face frozen with confusion. He gestures with his hand to come in. When I open my mouth to ask what happened, he silences me by putting his finger to his lips. I approach the door and look through the hole. Two very formally dressed women are waiting, looking at the door and their watches. My eyes are wide open. I run on tiptoe to grab my clothes from the closet in my room and drop them on the big bed in Ezra's room. As I lament that there is no time for other arrangements, Ezra calls out to the people at the door, "Just a second please, we'll open right away."

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  I run to the door in a sweat and Ezra opens the door. It is obvious that these are officials who have come to question the authenticity of our marriage. We don't need an explanation about that, but they seem to need an explanation about what just happened and why the door was opened late. We welcome them in.

  They sit side by side on the sofa.

  "It looks like a bit of a messy house. It must be hard to live in." The first woman is a bit annoying. But this is something we expected.

  Ezra immediately says, "We just got back from our honeymoon, we haven't settled in yet, please forgive us." He picks up his T-shirt that he left on the corner of the sofa. Both me and the interrogators suddenly fix our eyes on Ezra's abs.

  As Ezra puts the t-shirt back on, this time I interject, "Yes, unfortunately it's a bit messy, but we can still offer you something cold."

  I immediately head for the fridge.

  One of the interrogators says, "Just water please." The other one nods.

  "Are they acting like twins?" I think to myself.

  They just wait while I fill the water. When I offer the water, one of them drinks it. The other one looks at Ezra, who is sitting in the chair across from him with a glass of water in his hand.

  "You're Ezra Davis, right?"

  You should have asked me that before I came in. And stop looking like you're gonna eat my husband, bitch.

  "Yeah, that's me."

  We're both still waiting.

  The other woman says, "We're here to talk to you about your mother, Nina Davis."

  I can see Ezra's facial muscles tense, and I feel like I have to fight to keep my eyes from registering that this is the first time I've heard that name.

  The woman continues, "About your mother's parole..."

  Before she can finish, Ezra turns to me with a stony face, "Meryem, will you go to the bar without me?"

  The fire reflected on my face from his eyes tells me that this is not a request but an order. I immediately obey this order and grab my bag and leave.

  I start walking towards the bar with more question marks in my bag than I need. Is Ezra's mom in jail? Why is that? Is she on parole? Is that why he won't tell me about his family?

  But he has to tell me everything eventually.

  Somehow, some way, the US government has to believe that we're married. It won't be easy to make them believe that. They'll ask me about his family. They'll ask him questions about my family. I've told him a lot of things, actually. It's easier for them to believe that my family rejected me. In fact, it will strengthen my hand.

  But what kind of explanation am I going to give?

  “What do you know about your husband's family?”

  “Well, I think his mother is in jail. That's it, that's all, I don't know anything else. I found out by chance that his mother is in jail. Because my husband is like a secret box. Because my husband makes fun of everything, he's always joking and he never wants to talk about anything serious. Because my husband is not really my husband…”