Isabel and Nadia connected early. My daughter has a way of she doesn't do polite. She either decides she likes you or she doesn't, and she decided she liked Isabel about a week in. " Officer Webb made a note. "When did you decide to get married? " And there it was, the question at the center of everything. He had thought about this moment for 14 days.
He had thought about the version of this answer that was safest, the version that was most convincing, the version that a federal officer with a reputation for going off book would find most credible. He had decided at 6:15 that morning, standing in his kitchen next to a woman in his robe with cold coffee between them, that there was only one version worth giving. "Can I answer that honestly? " he said. Officer Webb looked up from her notes. Her expression didn't change.
"That's what I asked for. " "Then it didn't start as a romance. " he said. Isabelle was in a difficult situation. Her late husband had been an American citizen. He passed away and the paperwork became complicated. She was doing everything right, following every process, and the system was it wasn't meeting the reality of what she'd built here.
He held Officer Webb's gaze. "I was her neighbor. I knew her. I knew who she was and I made a decision that I could help practically and legally by offering to marry her. Not romantically, as an act of I don't know, decency because I could and because it was right. " Officer Webb's pen had stopped moving.
"That's not the standard narrative for this type of petition. " she said. "No. " Ethan agreed. "It's not. " "You understand what you're telling me. " "I understand what I'm telling you. " he said. "I'm also telling you what happened after. " A pause. Webb's eyes were steady, reading him.
"Go ahead. " she said. He leaned forward slightly, elbows on knees, the way his father had taught him. The posture of a man who is not afraid of what he's about to say. "We had rules. " he said. "Separate rooms.
No emotional attachment. We were very deliberate about keeping it clean. And then life doesn't honor contracts. We ate dinner together every night because my daughter expected it. We fell into routines.
I started knowing things about her I hadn't tried to learn how she takes her coffee, what she sounds like when something is wrong, what it looks like when she's trying not to let something show. He paused. And she knew things about me. Things that took me by surprise. The kind of things you only know about someone when you've actually been paying attention to them for a long time.
Webb made a note. Didn't look up. When did it change for you? Nadia's birthday, last March. I watched Isabel with my daughter, not performing, not trying to make an impression, just being there.
Being present with her the way you only are when you genuinely care, and not because you're supposed to. And I felt something shift. He was quiet for a moment. I didn't act on it. I didn't say anything.