Wife for Hire

The rice always burns a little at the bottom when I make it the way my mother did. I never fixed the recipe. Didn't really want to, if I'm honest. Some things you're supposed to inherit exactly as broken as they came to you.

"It's sticking again," Luz said from the kitchen table, not even glancing up from her homework. Nine years old, and she already knew that smell better than I did most nights.

"It's supposed to do that." I scraped the bottom of the pot anyway, mostly to give my hands something to do. "The burnt part is the best part, mija. Abuela used to fight your tío for it."

"You always say that."

"Because it's always true."

She smiled at her math worksheet like she wasn't going to give me the satisfaction of laughing. Two hundred square feet, a water stain shaped like Texas on the bathroom ceiling, a couch older than she was. It was enough. She was in it, the door was locked, and for one more night nobody could take any of it away.

We ate at the table, a rule I inherited from my mother the same way I inherited the burnt rice. Luz told me about a boy in her class who ate glue on a dare, and I laughed for real, the kind that comes up out of your chest before you decide to let it. She did the dishes after, because it was her turn, and she takes her turns seriously. More seriously than most adults I know.

I lit the candle at the little altar by the window the way I do every night. Marigolds, real ones when I can afford them, silk ones when I can't. That week they were silk, and I still talked to the photograph anyway.

"I got the second job," I told my mother, thirty one years old forever, smiling like she had no idea what was coming. "The diner on Fifth. Not much. Something, though."

I say I've got her every night, like saying it enough times will make it true.

Luz went to bed at nine, argued for nine fifteen, lost, same as always. I stood in her doorway longer than I needed to, watching her breathe. She still slept with the stuffed rabbit our father won at some fair we barely remember, one ear chewed soft, hers and mine both, years apart, same nervous habit.

I'd stood there before. More times than I want to count. Three weeks earlier, Ricardo showed up past ten at night, breath thick with whiskey, saying he only wanted to see his niece. I opened the door before I checked the peephole, stupidly, and by the time I understood what was happening he already had a hand around Luz's wrist, pulling her toward the hallway like she was something he'd misplaced instead of a person.

She's coming to stay with me, he said, loud enough for the neighbors to hear. Loud enough that Luz went white and silent in a way I still haven't forgotten. I pulled her back inside and threw the lock before he got another word out. Then I stood in front of that door like it was the only thing between us and something worse. That night, it was. He left cursing my mother's name and promising a judge would fix what I couldn't. I've slept with the chain actually engaged ever since.

I was still in Luz's doorway when I heard the mail slot.

Late for mail. I told myself it was probably a flyer and went to check anyway, because some part of me already knew.

Cream envelope. Heavy paper. A return address I recognized on sight: the county family court.

Notice of Expedited Custody Hearing. In the matter of the minor child, Luz Reyes. Petitioner: Ricardo Reyes.

I read it three times. The hearing had been moved up, three weeks instead of the six months his lawyer had threatened. Three weeks, and a judge who didn't know us, and a system with a box for married and a box for steady paycheck. No box anywhere for she raised her sister alone since she was nineteen and did it right.

I didn't sleep. By two in the morning I'd asked myself the same question a hundred different ways and hadn't found one answer I could afford.

I walked to my shift at the diner the next afternoon with the letter still folded in my coat pocket, like keeping it closer to my body would make it lighter. I nearly walked straight into a woman standing outside the coffee cart on the corner. Gray coat, sharp eyes, and she wasn't moving while everyone else on that block was, which is maybe why I noticed her at all.

"You've had a bad week," she said. Not a question.

"I'm sorry?"

"You have the walk of someone who got mail she didn't want." She held out a card between two fingers. Cream cardstock, no logo, just a phone number and four words underneath it: Marriage. Discretion. Compensation. Guaranteed.

I actually laughed, the short kind that isn't really a laugh. "You're joking."

"I run a service for people who are out of good options," she said, unbothered. "Some clients need money. Some need a name on a marriage certificate more than they need anything else in the world. It solves problems courts respect and nobody asks questions. Call if you decide you're one of them."

She was already walking off by the time I opened my mouth to tell her I wasn't that kind of person. I wasn't sure that was even true anymore. Didn't get the chance to find out, either way. I just stood on that corner with the card in my hand and the hearing sitting three weeks out like a clock I couldn't stop.

I meant to call that night. Sat at the kitchen table with the card in one hand and my phone in the other for a full twenty minutes before I even worked up the nerve to unlock the screen, the marigold candle burning lower the whole time I didn't move.

Typed the number in. Deleted it. Typed it in again. Only a desperate person marries a stranger for money, I kept thinking. Then again, only a desperate person sits around waiting for a judge to hand her sister to a man who still smells like whiskey in her nightmares. Turns out I was both kinds now. I thought about calling my friend Denise, just to hear someone else say out loud that this was insane, before I went and did it anyway. I thought about what my mother would say. I already knew. Dialed the number before I could talk myself out of it a third time.

A man's voice picked up on the second ring. "Reyes residence?"

"How do you know my name?"

"Ms. Reyes." He said it like he'd been expecting this call longer than I'd been considering it. "We'd like to offer you a meeting. Tomorrow, nine a.m. Bring identification. And bring an open mind. I think you'll find our arrangement solves more than one problem at once."

I should have hung up right there. Instead, I wrote down the address with a hand that had finally, finally started to shake.