I know you married me for a green card, Maya, and I know you think this marriage is just paper, my 76-year-old husband whispered from his deathbed inside Oakhaven Manor, his skin gray as ash.
The power remained out through the next day. The manor grew colder, the air heavy with unspoken tension. The Pendelton relatives, now numbering six, moved through the house with an air of possessive entitlement. I saw Silas unplugging the auxiliary generator they had brought, leaving us entirely dependent on the grid.
“What are you doing?” I asked, watching him coil the heavy extension cord.
He grunted, not looking at me. “Saving fuel. Power’ll be back eventually.”
I knew better. He was cutting us off.
I tried my flip phone again. Still no signal. The landline was still dead. The internet router, useless without power, sat dark. They had effectively isolated Oakhaven Manor.
Later, I overheard Evelyn talking to one of the cousins. “We just need her to sign the self-deportation stipulation. Then she’s gone, and we can get on with things.”
Self-deportation. They weren’t just trying to get rid of me; they wanted to force me to give up my legal fight and leave the country voluntarily. They knew I was undocumented, and they were using it as leverage.
Around dusk, Silas found me in the kitchen, trying to light the old gas stove for tea. He blocked the doorway, his large frame filling the space.
“We need to talk, Maya,” he said, his voice low, a menacing calm to it.
I straightened up, my hand still holding the matchbook. “I have nothing to say to you.”
“Oh, I think you do,” he countered, stepping further into the kitchen. The kitchen door, a heavy, solid oak, swung shut behind him. The click echoed.
He gestured to the two cousins who now stood in the doorway. Another relative, a tall, gaunt woman, stood beside Evelyn near the dining room entrance. Six of them, surrounding me in the cavernous house.
“You’re making this difficult, little lady,” Silas said, a smirk playing on his lips. “We know you’re here illegally. Your green card marriage is a sham, and frankly, a federal offense. We’ve got the papers drawn up. A self-deportation stipulation.”
He pulled a document from his back pocket, unfolding it. It looked official enough, filled with legal jargon. “Sign this, and we’ll let you go. We’ll even call you a cab to the bus station.”
“I’m not signing anything,” I said, my voice shaking slightly, but holding firm.
“You don’t have a choice,” Evelyn’s voice cut in from the dining room entrance. She stepped forward, her eyes hard. “You’re trapped, Maya. No phone, no power, no way out. We’ve locked the iron gate at the estate boundary. Even if you made it out of the house, you’d be stuck on the property.”
She was right. I remembered the heavy, wrought-iron gate, taller than a man, with its ornate Pendelton crest. It had been locked when I arrived; I hadn’t thought about it since. Now, it was my prison wall.
“You have until sunrise,” Silas threatened, gesturing with the paper. “Sign this, and you walk away with nothing but your freedom. Don’t sign it, and we’ll make sure you regret it.”
He unfolded the document, pushing it towards me across the kitchen table. The flickering light from the lantern Evelyn carried cast long, distorted shadows around them, making them seem even larger, more imposing.
My options felt stark: sign away my future, or face whatever they planned to do next. Trapped inside Oakhaven with six aggressive, hostile people, cut off from the outside world, I was truly alone.
More Stories
+ There are no comments
Add yours