Denied

John was my gym instructor at the local YMCA in downtown West Chester. I had started going there to try and have something about me that was like other people that lived in America, the working out culture was huge and I couldn’t believe that people would get up at 4am to work out. It was totally alien to me and I would have understood it if people worked but most of the women that I knew didn’t, they worked out and daily! I was in this way a complete outlier and so I joined the YMCA and would go around 7am and this is when I met John.

I walked into the gym, I’d been going now for just a couple of days when this slight young man, who looked exceptionally fit but not over blown, short dark hair, radiating the biggest smile, wearing a YMCA polo shirt walked towards me as I headed for the rowing machine

“Hi I’m John, I’m a trainer here, how’s it going with your routine?” He spoke in an even voice but I could tell this was an Italian American by the lilt of his voice, accents were starting to be distinguished for me and it was another thing that made me feel I was settled enough to notice this.

“Well I don’t really have one” I said sheepishly.

“Oh that’s OK” he chuckled. “I can help with that if you want?” he smiles reassuringly at me “We can maximize the time you have, what are your goals?” he said this pleasantly enough but I internally groaned it was 7.30am and I really didn’t have answers for him.

“Well I don’t know, just you see I walk most days and I’m thinking I should have something more that I’m doing, just I’m really not a gym person at all. I don’t even know how to use most of this stuff.” It was my turn to chuckle.

This meeting with John soon turned into him taking me around the various pieces  of equipment to familiarize me with what the machines were and how to use them. What this quickly dissolved into was John and I chatting and we would talk non-stop as soon as I arrived. I’d get there first thing in the morning walk to the little office he had and knock on the door frame.

“How’s it going I’d say” and that would be it the next 45 minutes we would catch up as we went machine to machine, John making sure I got my reps in, and he would tell me about the latest family gathering of his large family and of course the food they had had.

I often wondered how our food chat would jibe with the others in the gym who mechanically worked out, largely they wouldn’t interact with us or each other, headphones in or tablets placed in front of them, so maybe they didn’t hear us but there was a lot of food talk.

“Remind me again that meal you have the one you love the most, I think you said it had egg in it” I breathlessly said as I hauled on the rowing machine pulling forward and sliding back, arms achy and shoulders burning back and forth.

“Oh yes” he laughed “Timbello, it’s the best. It’s like lasagna, no pasta layers, thin egg layers, tiny meatballs, parmesan and mozzarella and of course sauce.”

“Ok, maybe I shouldn’t have asked, I'm hungry now!” I said, this was a lot of what we talked about.

What I hadn’t fully comprehended was that John and I were becoming firm friends and we would talk privately to each other and John knew about the immigration application that we had put in and we talked closely about American politics.

“You know when we took off we didn’t have the result of who the president was going to be” John is talking to me as I cycle next to him in the gym, which this morning hasn’t got many people in

“You didn’t?” I glanced at him but was trying to take the hill now displayed on the machine.

“No, up until then I was just excited to go to Iceland and I didn’t think there was any way that Trump would get in” Mmm I said non comitally. We both knew now how this ended.

“You should have heard the plane when we landed. As people turned on their phones the whole plane groaned! I don’t think any of us could believe it.”

No one believed it but this would affect us in a specific way. Our green card application had been in for some time and we were just working through it.

I sat in the office that we had at home in West Chester, a house built in 1855. Early in the house's history the room we now used for an office, had been a dr’s surgery. It was grand and spacious with double doors with bevelled glass and lakeland brass hinges, that contrasted with the soft white colour we had painted the wood surrounds. The wooden floor with inlay and the most beautiful crystal chandelier hung in the centre of the room.
A fireplace with green tiles and a grand surround in scrolled wood. The plentiful victorian windows faced the street but no one could see us hunkered down over the coffee table sat side by side on Damian’s red leather sofa and we were listening intently to the lawyer now talking on phone that was set to speaker in front of us

“Yes as we said, it’s not what we expected at all” the voice from the phone said into the room.
“No kidding” I muttered.

“Like we were saying, you can re apply, we just keep going” I looked at Damian both us looking confused.

“Ok well what does that look like?” I spoke trying to sound not as frustrated as I was feeling, up until then all I had said was hello, Damian had introduced me. He had done all the leg work with this immigration application, the mountain of paperwork, filling it all in, the conversations, the time, the money it all cost for the  “shoe in” we were reassured that we would get for a green card. It had been exhausting but we hadn’t thought for a second we would be turned down!

“There’s an 80% turn down rate on reapplication” I sharply inhaled as this statement hung in the air for a beat. “But we, as I said, can keep going.”

“That’s a 20% of people get it” I was incredulous, flabbergasted and now I was just in freefall.

“We have a child in high school” my voice going up as I became more and more annoyed “so we keep going and we what, get turned down again? And still have to leave, now they get like one year of high school in another country?”

“And Isaac, he would you say not be covered, he would have to apply in his own right?”

“Yes, that’s correct, he would need to do a separate application” the lawyer said neutrally.

I sat back in my seat and looked at Damian with tears in my eyes with the frustration of it all.

“We need to talk as a family” Damian calmly said to the phone and the call ended

“I don’t get it..I mean we were a shoe in,” I said this to Damian as I sat there.

This was all as it happened and as we said to everyone and we knew a lot of people in our small borough having now lived there for 8 years, this was part of the new rules on visas. And no it didn’t matter that my husband had an American company, or that he was in high tech, or that he was an industry leader, no that didn’t make a difference. The list was long of why we didn’t qualify remarkably but simply put the rules had changed, the visa no longer available and to top it off Damian was not american and that his business was owned by a non american was one of the issues. It was incomprehensible to us and now we had to decide what we would do.

We sat around the wooden table next to the kitchen, a place that every evening we had our family meal. A cosy space that had been just for the four of us to sit and talk through the days we had all had, now was a meeting place to decide what we would do with our life. The weight of the decision on us all, the sick feelings in our stomachs and the inescapable question, what would we do ? like a pall above us.

I and the kids tear stained faces said it all, this was a disaster. Damian sat tightlipped and impassive. The face we all knew, he had it under wraps and wouldn’t break down like us, he was holding his upset tightly inside whilst talking it through, explaining the best he could what the lawyers had said.

“So as we see it” he looked at me and then back to the kids “it’s either move back home, somewhere, or stay in north american time and move to Canada. The words practical and measured belied his feelings. The kids intermittently sniffed and tried to still their shaky breathing, anger not far away along with the heaving sobs that had only just left them.

“The options are that we move home” Damian said as more tears slid out of my eyes and Lily’s, as we quietly cried. I could feel my heart swelling in my chest with that feeling of  possibility: the pull of the island, a burst of hope, we would move home!…right on the heels of this feeling instantly squashing it, the reality of what that would look like. Damian travelling all the time and us trying to find a life there after being somewhere else and turning into something else. The kids leaving for their own life far from the island, leaving just like we had done before them, to our parents. I couldn’t do it but I wasn’t alone in this thought at least.

“I’m not so sure I want to go back to working in a different time zone” Damian said interrupting my thoughts.

“Well no, that’s hard” I said “what do you two think?” I looked at the kids searching their faces.

“I think we should go to Canada. I don’t want to stay here at college anyway and I don’t want to be separated from the family” Isaac said with feeling.

“I think we should go where Lily can have something that’s like school here, she needs to finish high school, that’s the most important thing, she can’t just have a year to do that somewhere else! Which is what we might face if we reapply.”

All the reasons and all the talking but it came down to one thing. We wanted to stay together as a family, no one being left behind. We would go to Canada. Although we had arrived at this decision, telling others of this was no easy task. John was just one of many reactions we had to navigate through.

For many years in West Chester I had been a volunteer for a non profit and latterly was the chairwoman, this occupation for me had given me purpose and friendship from the other ladies that worked there. This was my community and telling these ladies was some of the hardest to tell.
“You’re leaving? What you have to leave! I mean that’s not right” Maggy said with some pain in her voice. She was my companion to drop off the items consigned to our small shop that couldn’t be sold and the owners no longer wanted. We would bumble about in her car chatting and laugh and of course swearing as she had been a nurse

“You know Miranda, this is known as nurses mouth” she would laugh as she gripped the wheel and yet again we had let a word fly!

“I know the leaving is hard but it’s what we have to do. We have to.”

“But you’ll be back” she said hopefully.

This response was often said and for some they wanted us to fight, not realising that the cost that would take of us wasn’t worth it to us, the magic of staying in america and the undermining of that no longer held appeal and the idea that it was worth it at any price emotionally  something we weren’t interested in doing

I was in a shop in town that was owned by a woman I had grown very fond of, an absolute fire brand of a person and someone who had taken on local politics for many years,

“But you’ll fight it, right?” Holly said, eyes blazing into mine. We were stood in the shop and I was trying to talk quietly about this change in circumstances and she was having none of it.

“I mean I can talk to some people. There must be a way round this” I smiled weakly.

“Holly there really isn’t. We have had the best lawyers on this and they had no idea this would happen. Things have changed and honestly this is all new to them. And besides I'm not prepared to go through more of this insecurity and the fact that we would and probability is high that we would get turned down. I’m just not doing that and I’m not doing that to the kids. We can move to Canada as Damian has business there.” she looked at me throughout this almost open mouthed astounded, I guess she thought I was defeated

“But you’ll come back” Jeanie her assistant sales girl chimed in “right?” this last word delivered light airy hopeful. I winced now feeling horrible, like I was having to explain to them what their country was doing to us and to thousands of others

“No, I’m sorry, it wouldn’t be possible, not now” the air hung uncomfortably.

They just couldn’t believe it and of course every time I saw Holly there was a version of this, she couldn’t let it go. For me I was exhausted and drained and just devastated but the repetition of the conversation was exhausting. But at least this was better than my lovely friend from the non profit that every time she saw me, and that would be weekly she would tear up, the tears hanging perilously on her eye lid.

“Hi Deedee” I said walking into the consignment store that we had, I was getting ready to help put out the items the pricers had worked on. For the next 3 hours ferrying the items from the backroom to the small shop floor with a basement area too. Readying the displays to entice the shoppers we would get in the week. Deedee stood in front of me in the doorway at the back of the shop, holding some spring decorated pottery she had just priced. She was a tall woman, mid brown hair with a curl that rested almost on her shoulder. She had the kindest face and I could see she would have been a caring teacher, her life long profession. Her warm dark eyes fell on me and I could see tears forming. I had told the volunteers already and this was the aftermath.

“It’s ok Deedee, we will be fine” I said more cheerily than I felt “Honestly, we will be together Damian and I and the kids, being together is the most important thing” she had heard this, she had heard the reasons of leaving and yet the emotion of it was too much for her.

She didn’t have the words. Deedee’s visible distress was hard to bear and she knew that but she also couldn’t stop it. The feelings were so deep. These ladies I volunteered with loved me and this was what it looked like.

Moving to Canada made sense to us all and was by far the most practical solution having our painstakingly built life in America revealed to what it was all along, temporary. The 9 years of settling and building a life reduced to nothing and meaning nothing in the face of immigration processes. Explaining this to people that this is just the system also produced a reaction that was the ugliest of them all.

“But you’re the right kind of immigrant. I don’t understand” The man was stood by Damian in the gym he had joined and his gym was an elevated experience compared to the YMCA.

I always teased Damian that he had joined as they had towels provided after they had done their pickup basketball game. But he had found a community here and that we prized. He had made friends here but this was where reality came crashing in for him. The disgust that he had for this type of talk, something as a family that we shared was apparent in the angry re telling of this story later that day at dinner.

“The right kind of immigrant!” Damian repeated this again “It’s just amazing to me that someone would say that out loud" there was no response to the person Damian had felt.

“I just wanted to punch him,” he said hotly.

“Probably a good thing you didn’t” I added dryly

The dealing with the turn down was brutal and every day at school Lily would face the grief that people were feeling, her friends and teachers shocked. But we, we had to move on, we had to prepare and largely with no real clue of what the choice we had made would look like. Most Americans would tell us of Canada that there are polar bears there! For us the idea of a settled life and a better way to permanent settlement seemed infinitely more appealing than trying to stay in a place ever hostile to immigrants. Years of living visa to visa had worn us down and so North we went.

I had slipped out of the hotel, to go to the house to check on the cats. We were staying at the Warner, a hotel that we had seen built in our town of West Chester. The Warner’s previous life had been as a movie theatre and many people told us of the stories of going there as teenagers. I had only ever seen it shuttered and forgotten. I would walk past it on the way to the Italian deli and look at the large plate glass windows edged in gold tramlines, an art deco design, and looking into the foyer, admire the beautiful sweeping staircase, the lush red and gold carpet dusty now with age and hope that something would happen to the old place, surely they wouldn’t knock it down.

They hadn’t knocked it down, they had reinvented it as the front half of a hotel and we had watched it being raised again. At the time we marvelled at the timber used to do this, rickety and implausible rebuild that was hard to imagine as sturdy. But for our last night in West Chester this would be where we would stay. The journey already begun and in our hearts we had left already.

Our house in the borough was now empty, the removers having packed and left yesterday for Canada. As our beds were in a truck somewhere between the two countries we had squeezed one more night in West Chester, loathed to leave, it was a strange limbo, starting a new life but mourning the old one. Exhausted from all the final teary goodbyes and the wretched shaking of my head, in response of

“You’ll come back…” . I had gotten sick of saying

“No, I’m sorry that isn’t possible, we can’t live here again” the sad confused looks of miscomprehension.

We would silently slip away, no waving throng to send us off, just us four in a car with two cats and our bags, easing out of the life we had had.

The only thing left in the house were our cats Bella and Archie who had been with us from the first October we had moved here. Our American short haired litter mates who also had to have paperwork and injections to change country. They had been so freaked out with all the showings of the house and all the disruption of packing that we felt it best to leave them at the house and we would gather them into the car later, but I hadn’t been able to stop worrying about them, our friendly people loving cats alone in the house.

As I stood in the road the gentle soft light of the morning falling on the buildings either side and making the red bricks glow that much brighter, it was as much as I could do not to just lie down in the street! I felt in some ways it was already not my town any longer. It was all incomprehensible to me and I realized that for the whole of the time I had lived here it had never been anything but temporary.

“Scranton, that’s a funny name” I said as the car climbed the hill of the small town and the wooded hillsides pressed down

“Looks a bit…” I wanted to say worn down!

“It’s got an industrial past like a lot of these Pennsylvanian towns” Damian added authoritatively.

He had already done this journey by car and he had a good idea of where he was going. I was just sort of floating somewhere in full untethered travel mode of having no real idea of where you are. I often feel like this when I’m travelling. The emotion of the upheaval putting me in a frame of mind that makes everything distant and then suddenly way too close on arriving as the emotions rise up to meet me.

The thing about this journey was that once started it felt like an adventure and my curious nature and overly observant eyes were working overtime taking all of what I could see in. The kids were quiet in the back on devices with headphones and so for the most part were silent. The cats had almost stopped meowing but intermittently they would start up again, I was managing to block it out, this was definitely a journey once started you had to keep going.

The Pennsylvania state gave way to New York state and soon we were on highways surrounded by forests all green and verdant, the odd barn would appear on a green hill side and our ears would pop as the elevation got higher. This start of our new life was slow and the journey laboured on.

As we neared the Canadian Border the traffic increased and towns popped up and soon we were on the bridge half in America and half in Canada. My heart leapt at the excitement of this, a new life and hopefully a settled life. We would stay, we would get permanent residency as soon as possible. We had already bought a house in Canada in a knee jerk reaction to having to leave America, wanting to limit more transience. This house was as different as it could be to the one we had just left, built in 1959, it had a terrible layout, with ghastly decor and had been badly renovated over it’s short life and needed some vision, which luckily I had plenty of. The sq ft was the same as our house left in West Chester but that was where the comparison ended, 1885 red brick double walled house that had been built in 10 months was the pride and joy of John and Lavina Hoopes. Built to last and solid! This bungalow in Canada on the other hand was something unknown to me. It’s location however was just in the right spot for us to move on a work visa for Damian and fast track us to residency, the sting of not having this granted in America constantly playing on our minds. We wouldn’t live anywhere on a visa that dragged on only to be denied. That was a lesson well learned. This time we would get residency first and settle after.

I had arranged for Lucy to come and stay with us, I was desperate to settle in Canada as soon as possible and Lucy being my anchor knew how important this was, the bitter resentment that I had of being wrenched from my old life and now having to start over was overwhelming. She would come 2 weeks after we drove over the border and help unpack, which she did. Having Lucy in my space in Canada made it more real.

“OK M I think you need to have this picture right here in the kitchen, that way you will be able to look at it everyday.” It was a massive canvas 36x36 inches bright and something that I loved. I nodded enthusiastically.
“What do you think about that cosy nook I made off the kitchen?” I said as we walked to it

“Oh here, well this is perfect. You always have to have a spot that you can sit in and feel comfortable” Lucy said with her own experience guiding her words, she knew all about settling in a house.

“Yes well I think this spot by the gas fire will be perfect for that” We both sat on the chairs we had there, Lucy on the Crate and Barrel linen sofa that had lasted all the time in America despite the cats best efforts!

“I  can’t get over the way Brian managed to get the position of the fire place just right” I said with awe.

“It’s amazing” she chimed “and you met him like once?”

“Yup, just we clicked and he just got me. Think we struck gold there” we smiled, we were both remembering my old handymen Mike and Dave.

“Did you say goodbye to them” Lucy asked gently

“Yes I did, that was bloody hard” I remembered all the good byes and how hard they all were. Endless for the 120 days that we had left in america.

“So you want to come and stay” John had phoned me my old gym instructor. Lucy had just gone and that had almost ripped me in two. But we had assured each other this would be a regular thing and it wasn’t that far to west chester from canada.

“Well I probably won’t need to stay, I’ll just drive up from Toronto" he breezily said.

“You will? You know the 401 is a horrible road” I cautioned.

“I’ll be fine” John wasn’t being put off.

The fact that in the space of 2 months I had seen Lucy, had a constant stream of texts and emails from friends in America was still mind boggling. But that John, a young man I didn’t really feel massively close to or rather he was a friend at the gym. We didn't socialize, that he was interested in seeing us in our new home land was curiously sweet I thought. I relished showing him the small exploring I had done and maybe it wouldn’t be awkward. I mean he really wanted to see me, driving all the way from Toronto seemed a lot and he would have had the 9 hrs from West Chester on top of that.

I needn’t have worried, John got out of the car and I looked on, beaming as he equally beamed back at me in the September sunshine.

“Well hello you” I said lightly and stepped off the steps to give a swift hug

“Come in, let me show you the house. There’s loads that we want done, like the basement needs a complete overhaul but it’s looking good, oh and the kitchen is ok, needs some stuff doing. But truly this is quite the monster” I walked in front of John along the path

“It looks nice” John said to my back and I turned and smiled.

There was just something about this young man, he was so pleased to see us and I was amazed at how pleased I was to see him. It was funny, I had spoken to him every other day for years at the gym and he helped me the reluctant gym rat do some kind of working out. It seemed that us talking to each other, and the sharing we had done had forged something.

I didn’t realise it would be so hot in Canada and September was proving to be quite warm, but I wanted to go for a walk and I thought John would like that too. It would be a good way to show him the neighbourhood

“You know it’s not really like West Chester at all” I said tightly, feeling the emotions barely hidden would undo me.

“But we can walk to town and that I like” I stopped suddenly on the sidewalk and crouched to take a photo, a leaf that had changed to a brilliant yellow was on the grey concrete and it looked perfect.

“Damian hates walking with me as I’m always stopping like that” I said, unfurling myself and smiling at John.

I marveled at the ease we had and again reflected that maybe this was someone who was a friend. I wanted to understand what had compelled him to make the journey”

“You know John, I’m surprised that you wanted to come and see us?” I said as casually as I could
“Really” he said shocked.

“Well yeah I mean” I was at a loss “I know it was tough me telling you that time” for an instant we are both quiet and I guessed it was that gym scene where I had broken the news about us being denied our green cards. John’s reaction was something that I couldn’t forget and from the look on his face he hadn’t either.

“Every time you came to the gym well you just made my day” he smiled genuinely at me.

“Really, I wasn’t the best working out person” I was feeling really embarrassed now.

“Your whole family are amazing” John said enthusiastically.

“You were always so positive,” I smiled.

Having John stay for a bit and sit with us as a family, it just reminded me all over that I had made real connections with people in West Chester and now being away from there, that these connections still mattered was astounding to me. I simply wasn’t forgotten…