Working Backwards

March 18, 1996
This is it. We’ve made it. One year.

How many will we have?

I don’t know. 50? 60?

Do you still want to keep doing this?

20,000 feet
Sir, you need to fill out these forms before we land.

I look at her. She is nervous. There is more paperwork, and I’ve gotten myself drunk. I don’t understand what the stewardess is trying to tell me.

I look at her. She is frightened. She has heard stories of foreigners taking naïve brides and turning into men they did not appear to be. Of girls sold into servitude. She sees me not taking the paperwork seriously. She wants me to hold her hand and comfort her. This is all so new.

Do you understand what she’s asking of you?

The Memory of a Conversation
We got off to too many turbulent starts. On the telephone, I called my parents and told them I had met her. They told me about stories. Poor girls who flatter Americans as a way out.

But she doesn’t want a way out. She wants me.

How old are you? The question is only ever asked to embarrass and prove a point.

I’m 21. She’s 18. Will you come to the wedding?

I don’t know. I don’t think so. Do you really want to do this?

Bucharest
International marriages in at-risk countries test your faith in people. The paperwork you complete is always wrong, the test you submit always fails, the distance between consulate and embassy grows as time shortens. In the books I always loved to read, these challenges strengthen the ties. I love the books where people overcome. Even though it's fiction.

It won’t last. You hardly know each other.

But she has to know me. I’m transparent. Even you said so. I’m easy.

But she…

She’s transparent, too. You said so. It’s easy to know her. I’m her ticket to a better life.

The Gate
Tickets.

Excuse me?

Your tickets, please.

I hand the tickets over. Someone else can hold them now. I look at her. She’s never been on an airplane. I finally understand that it’s all true. All of it.

I really am her way out.

She doesn’t want you, can’t you see that?

She doesn’t want you, she wants to escape from her misery.

She doesn’t want you, she wants a ticket to a better life.

But, don’t you see? That’s what I want, too. There are two tickets on this flight, and I need one just as badly as she does.

Do you really know what you’re doing?

A priest.
A very lovely girl.

A very simple question that I’ve answered each day for the last ten years.

I do.