The spicy warmth of toasted sesame oil filled the kitchen. Ah. Just the right amount of brown to the chicken. Matt had to take the stir-fried pieces off the stove. Now. Any longer and they would be overcooked.

“Hey everybody! You like jjajangmyeon noodles? You see them all the time on Korean drama and TV shows!” The adorable YouTube chef, Maangchi, waved at the camera.

“Ye!” Matt’s seven-year-old daughter, Rose shouted. “I love black bean noodles!”

Matt couldn’t help laughing. “Put it on pause, sweetie.” He was trying to follow Maanchi’s directions for the popular Korean dish. It had been a bit of an ordeal scouting Korean grocery stores in Honolulu for things he normally didn’t buy such as potato starch powder, daikon radish, and jjajangmyeon noodles.

He’d assembled all the ingredients for the black bean sauce. As he removed the chicken from the stove and prepared to stir fry the sliced radish, zucchini and chopped potatoes, he glanced over at Rose.

She either hadn’t heard him or she was too gaga over Maangchi to pause the video.

“I already posted the recipe, but today is a very upgraded version.” Maangchi held her hand up high.

“Ye!” Rose hollered again. Matt’s gorgeous little girl was the love of his life. Ye, Korean for yes, was her new favorite word. Except when she was saying aniyo, no, to things like “Go to bed.” Or “Brush your teeth.”

She stared intently at the video on Daddy Thomas’s laptop. She wrote something in her new Hello Kitty journal, showing it to him.

But Thomas sat rigid, arms folded, staring into the distance. At the age of seven, Rose’s dream was to be a tightrope walker, Internet cook, champion hula dancer, or a vet. Maybe all four. He was usually so encouraging, so active in all the things Rose loved.

“Daddy?” She switched her focus to Matt. “We have the right noodles, don’t we?”

Thomas snapped back to attention. “Didn’t you go to three different markets to find them? What’s taking so long anyway?”

Rose gazed at him, obviously surprised by his surly tone.

Matt stared at Thomas, the other great love of his life. He turned off the stove and moved closer to the kitchen table, pausing the video himself. “Rosie, darling, can you give me a minute alone with your father?”

“Can I watch Racket Boys on the TV in your room?”

Matt hesitated. He’d vowed never to become the kind of parent who used the boob tube as a babysitter, but Thomas had been a jerk all day and Matt needed to get to the bottom of it. “Sure, sweetie. You have fifteen minutes.”

“Way cool!” She zoomed off, sliding across the kitchen floor in her bright pink socks. The base of them read, “Cancer, you messed with the wrong girl!” They’d been a gift from Matt’s twin brother, Ryan, in celebration of Rose getting a clean bill of health from her oncologist.

This was supposed to be a celebratory meal. It was supposed to be a happy evening, the sun setting beyond their Black Point home and settling on the majestic slopes of Diamond Head so clear and sparkling outside their living room windows.

It had been six years since Rose had received a bone marrow transplant to help cure a rare blood cancer. For Matt and Thomas, the every-two-year mark when their daughter was tested was always harrowing.

The fact that Rose was healthy, happy, and hungry, was a beautiful thing.

“You okay?” he asked Thomas.

To his astonishment, Thomas shook his head.

“What’s wrong?” Matt prayed it wasn’t his health. He couldn’t handle another bad thing happening to either one of his loves.

Thomas looked frightened. “Babe. I’m in big trouble.”

Matt gripped the edge of the table. “What kind of trouble? Are you sick?”

“I wish. No.”

“Don’t wish trouble on yourself!”

Thomas closed his eyes. “I screwed up. I’m in trouble with Homeland Security. They want to deport me.”

Matt pulled out a chair and plunked himself into it. “What the hell are you talking about? You’ve got a green card!”

“Yeah. I got one. But it had the wrong info on it.”

“What?”

I returned it to Immigration like they said I should.”

“What are you talking about?”

Thomas blew out a breath.

“You got that thing five years ago and you’re just telling me now? And what kind of wrong info was on it?”

Thomas didn’t seem to be listening. “I sent it back.” His voice cracked. “I never heard from them again.”

Matt was trying hard not to freak out. They had been married for more than ten years. He tried to keep calm as he asked again, “What was the wrong info on it?”

Thomas sighed and got up from the table. He was still the hottest mofo Matt knew. Thomas opened his messenger bag and slid a folded piece of paper across the table to him. “I took a photocopy of the green card before I returned it.”

Matt opened the page and stared at the image before him. The card read Thomas Carter and had their street address in Honolulu as well as his global ID number. But the photo was of an elderly, gap-toothed Asian man.

“But that’s not you.”

“Exactly.”

“And you just sent it back to them?” Matt couldn’t believe it. “Why didn’t you tell me? We should have gone to an immigration attorney and let them deal with it.”