A Life Everlasting by Sarah Gray

Zima-soaked college haze, I later joked with Ross. How was I supposed to know where all those people were born? This was pre-9/11; I was not checking passports.
    Given everything, I supposed a few intrusive questions were hardly the worst thing we were going to face.
    It was nearly time for Callum’s arrival, and for Thomas’s arrival and departure.
    Ross called a funeral home to make advance arrangements.
    â€œI’m so sorry, Mr. Gray. When was the death?” the funeral director asked.
    â€œWe don’t know,” Ross said. “He’s not even born yet.”
    By March 10, 2010, we had to tell the hospital where to transport Thomas’s body if he died there, as we expected he would. We found a children’s cemetery in the DC suburbs, picked out a tiny coffin, and went over the list of mandatoryexpenses—cold storage, hairdressing, makeup; and the optional ones—a viewing ceremony, a limo ride for the coffin to the gravesite, a tombstone. A burial.
    We tentatively scheduled Thomas’s funeral service for March 29, six days after his predicted combination-birth-and-death day.
    Twelve days to go.

C HAPTER F OUR

    Hello, Good-Bye
    March 2010
    A few weeks before our scheduled delivery date, Ross received a letter from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) informing him that his citizenship ceremony had finally been scheduled for Monday, March 22—the same day as the scheduled C-section.
    We had waited more than five years for this appointment, longer even than we had been trying to have a baby. Obtaining Ross’s citizenship had been a complicated and frustrating process, even though we were married. What would we do?
    It had been a huge relief to finally receive the notice to appear at the naturalization ceremony, where he would take the oath of allegiance, even if the timing was supremely unlucky.
    I called Dr. Khoury and told him about the conflict.
    â€œWe’ll have to reschedule your delivery,” Dr. Khoury said without hesitation. “Immigration will never reschedule. We’ll do it on the twenty-third.” I imagined he’d had some personal experience with USCIS, so quick had been his reaction to ournews. Regardless, I was grateful for his flexibility, especially given how trying the whole immigration thing had been.
    I had heard that immigration to America had been difficult enough before the events of 9/11, and after that it became even more so. I thought of the poem on the Statue of Liberty:

    Give me your tired, your poor,
    Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
    The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
    Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
    I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

    What an outdated relic those sentiments proved to be, at least for us.
    Ross wasn’t tired or poor when he arrived in the United States, but he would be by the time the USCIS was done with him. It took five years and about four thousand dollars in fees and a lawyer’s help. Ross had to spend our first six months of marriage unemployed; he was not allowed to leave the country, but he was not allowed to work, either, even though he had a job waiting for him. Ross had a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering and had been employed at an engineering firm in Glasgow. His company, Halcrow, coincidentally had a U.S. office near Washington, DC, so when he asked about the chances of moving to the DC office, he was delighted to find out that he would have a job waiting for him if he could work out his own visa. In fact, Halcrow merely wanted to know when he could start.
    No such luck. I was embarrassed by how unwelcoming my country was to my beloved. Engaging with the USCIS was like dealing with the government of a third-world country. They were understaffed, and it showed.
    The visa he eventually acquired was the K-1 visa, known asthe “fiancé visa.” While he still lived in Scotland, he took a day off work and travel four