Page 82 of Que Será, Syrah

And I tell them about how we broke our contracts and quit our jobs, and then spent the next several weeks applying for Nico’s visa and assembling the stack of documents we would need to convince Immigration that we were actually a couple.

“And were you?” Bee asks.

“We were friends,” I tell her. And then shrug and add, “Well, at least I thought we were.”

I explain how we’d moved into an apartment together. And how I’d come home early one day and overheard him talking about how long we’d need to stay married before he could divorce me and take half of what I’d inherited. “So, you see, sometimes eavesdroppers do hear things to their advantage.”

“That rat bastard,” Rosa growls.

“Yeah, and you wanted to put him up here,” Bee reminds her.

“What? No. Please tell me he’s not staying here?” I beg.

My sisters shake their heads in tandem. “He’s not.”

“He already had a hotel, down at the Junction.”

“Off the Twelve. So, what happened next?”

“Well, next I called Mama and got a referral for the best divorce lawyer in Italy. On Sergio’s dime.”

My sisters exchange looks. “I feel like there’s a story there,” Rosa muses.

“Let me guess,” Bee says. “It’s ‘not important right now’?”

“Well, it’s not.”

“You said you couldn’t get the marriage annulled,” Rosa asks. “Why was that? It sounds like you would have had ample grounds?”

“You would think,” I agree. “But now all the work I’d put into proving that we actually were married was working against me.”

“Okay, so?”

So, I tell them about Romania—the ‘divorce tourism’ capital of the EU. How I holed up there and waited, taking occasional jobs to break the monotony and stave off boredom, until finally, “I guess hiring a stupidly expensive lawyer really does pay off. He dug up proof of Nico’s first marriage?—”

“Wait, are you saying he wasn’t divorced, either?” Rosa guesses.

“No, he was. But since he only got the idea to marry me after he listened in on the call about the will, he wasn’t prepared. He was in a hurry to marry me—before I came to my senses and changed my mind—but he didn’t have his divorce paperwork on hand, and there was no way to get it in time. So, he figured the best thing to do was to ignore the question altogether. Which, ultimately, is what invalidated the marriage. It was a lie of omission.”

“Okay, and?”

“And nothing; that was that. Since Gibraltar was now basically saying the marriage had never actually taken place, Romania couldn’t grant me a divorce to dissolve it. My lawyer wished me “In bocca al lupo,” and told me to go home and enjoy my life.

“And you really didn’t know?” Bee asks.

“What, that he’d been married before? Honestly, I have no idea. He might have mentioned it at some point. But, even if he had, I wouldn’t have thought anything of it. As far as I knew, all being divorced meant was that he was free to marry.”

“No, I mean you had no idea he was just after your money?”

“I knew the marriage was transactional. But I thought all he wanted a green card.”

“And what were you supposed to be getting out of it?” Rosa asks.

“Oh, um…” Shit. ‘Protection against the two of you’ seems cruel and unnecessary, at this point. But once again I’m saved from answering an awkward question, this time by the arrival of Jake and Nico.

* * *

We hear the buzz of conversation in the hall, and then Jake’s voice calling, “Hey, Rosa?”

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