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pregnant.” He shudders. “Just let me explain, okay? It’ll all make sense once I do.” He proceeds to tell them about my immigration situation and how if I’m married to an American citizen, I can apply for permanent residency and how otherwise I’d have to go back to Iran and how neither of us wants that.
    “You’re right. It makes perfect sense now.” Mrs. Hanson’s face is pomegranate red. “You’re being taken advantage of by this girl.”
    “I’m not being taken advantage of.” Ike’s face is tight. “I’ve known her for three months, and I’ve been crazy about her the whole time.”
    “Three months.” Mrs. Hanson says it as scornfully as if Ike had said three days. “Do you even know her middle name?”
    Floundering, Ike looks to me.
    “I don’t have a middle name,” I say.
    “That’s not my point,” Mrs. Hanson snaps. “Ike, what do you know about her?”
    “I know that I love her.” He takes my hand again. “I know that if I let her leave, I’d regret it for the rest of my life.”
    My heart swells.
    “Oh, for God’s sake,” his mother says. “Get a grip, would you?”
    Mr. Hanson leans toward Ike. “I’m sure she’s a lovely person. But, son, how much of this is just a result of . . . well . . . of you not wanting to be left again?”
    Ike startles. “What’re you talking about?”
    “If you remember, you said these same sorts of things after Jenna left.”
    My heart gasps. This Jenna keeps coming up—twice in the past hour! I’d had the impression the relationship ended long ago, and yet there were those postcards, and now there’s this comment.
    Ike’s face is flushed, angry. “This is utterly, completely, a hundred percent different.”
    “Is it?” Mr. Hanson says. “Don’t you think you maybe rushed into this with her because you took too long to make up your mind about—”
    “I let Jenna go,” Ike says. “I want Tami to stay. It’s not the same at all.” He keeps a firm grip on my hand.
    “It would have made inherently more sense for you to have married Jenna,” Mrs. Hanson says.
    “I didn’t want to marry Jenna.”
    “We’re not saying you should have married her, either,” Mr. Hanson says. “Only that it would have made more sense than this does. You knew her a lot longer. You—” He stops himself, but it’s quite simple to fill in the blank. You loved her a lot longer, and maybe more. “Your words at the time, if you remember, son, were that you weren’t ready to be married and you resented how she’d basically—your words— put a gun against my head to get me to commit. How is this not the same thing?”
    “This is different.” I’ve never heard such harshness from Ike before. I hate to hear it and hate even more that I’m the one who caused it. “Jenna’s ultimatum was contrived. Tami’s isn’t. She didn’t even give me an ultimatum. I asked her. Happily. Voluntarily. With total delight! I wish—” His strident voice softens. “Show a little faith in me, would you? I’m a relatively smart guy with a pretty decent head on my shoulders. I’m not an idiot. I realize this isn’t exactly normal. But it’s what the circumstances require. And within the context of things, I’ll tell you the marriage itself is more of a formality, or a technicality, than anything. You’re going to see us taking things slow.”
    “How is marriage just a technicality?” Mrs. Hanson says.
    “And how is marrying a girl you hardly know taking it slow?” says Ike’s father.
    “Well, for one thing,” Ike says, “we’re not going to live together right away.”
    His mother gasps and covers her mouth.
    Ike continues, “We’re going to—”
    “What kind of marriage is this?” She’s practically wailing.
    “It’s the kind of marriage Tami and I want.”
    “It’s a sham!” she says. “It’s a fraud! She’s taking advantage of you— how do you not see it? Anyone can see it! Ike, come on! Get it annulled. ” She looks at him