One Year As Mrs Blackwood

Emma POV I count the money twice before I believe it. Four hundred and twelve dollars. That’s everything. Rent, groceries, Lily’s inhaler. It’s not enough for even one of those things anymore. The knock at the door isn’t a knock. It’s a fist. “Ms. Carter. I know you’re there.” Mr. Rivera, the homeowner's voice, not neighbor voice. I open the door on the chain first, because some instinct tells me not to give him the whole gap. “You’re twelve days late,” he says, “and I’ve got a list of people who’d pay on time for this unit.” “I will have it by Friday. I already told your office.” “You told my office that last month too.” He looks past me, into the apartment, like he’s pricing the furniture. “Friday, in full, or I file. I don’t want to do that with a kid in the picture, but I’ve got a business to run.” He says kid loud enough that I know Lily heard it from the couch. That’s the part that actually lands not the threat, the audience. I shut the door before I let him see my face do anything. Behind me, the TV’s gone quiet. “Was that about us?” Lily asks. “It’s handled.” “You always say that right before it’s not.” “Go do your homework, Lily.” She doesn’t move for a second longer than she needs to, and I hate that I can’t give her a better answer than a closed door and a lie. I’m already dialing the bank before she’s out of the room. Voicemail holds music, then a rep tells me, almost gently, that a payment extension isn’t something they can approve twice in one year. I call my aunt next. It rings four times and goes to a mailbox that’s full. I try a payday loan app I swore I’d never touch again; it flags my last default and rejects me in under ten seconds, a red banner where an answer should be. Three calls, and I was still holding the phone when an email dropped on Alvarez & Cole: Regarding Your Position and I already knew before I opened it that the last steady income I had was about to become the fourth no of the night. Emma, given the firm’s current budget, we won’t be able to extend your position past this semester. I don’t cry. I don’t have the ten minutes it would take. I opened my closet instead and pulled out the one thing I own worth actual money: my mother’s watch, the one I promised myself I’d never sell, and I photographed it for a resale app with hands that won’t quite hold still. I post it and within a minute, someone offers half what it’s worth and tells me to take it or leave it or take it. Fifteen dollars doesn’t fix anything, but it’s fifteen dollars I found instead of fifteen dollars I lost. My phone buzzes again. Unknown number, a text this time. Mr. Damian Blackwood requests a meeting. Tomorrow, 10:00 a.m. Attendance is optional. Your financial situation is not being resolved. P. Hale Blackwood. Even I know that name it's on a building, on a hospital wing, on the news whenever the stock market has a good week. Rich and untouchable, the kind of rich that doesn’t need anything from someone like me, which is exactly why it doesn’t make sense that they do. I don’t answer. I don’t have room tonight to wonder what a stranger with that much money wants from a law student who can’t make rent. “I’m running to the corner store,” Lily calls from the hallway. “Five minutes.” “Take your phone.” “It’s charging. Five minutes, Em.” I let her go. I’m still staring at my own phone when I realize how long five minutes has actually been. “Lily?” Her room’s empty. Bathroom, empty. Her phone’s on the kitchen counter, still charging, which she never leaves behind. My phone rings before I can call out again. UNKNOWN NUMBER but a different one than the text. I answered, already moving toward the front door. “Hello?” “Is this Emma Carter? I’m calling from Mercy General. Your sister was brought in about ten minutes ago. She collapsed at the corner store on Fifth. A clerk called it in. She’s stable, but I need you to come now.” The floor tilts. Five minutes. That’s what she said. I let her go because I was too busy staring at a stranger’s text to count the minutes myself. “I’m on my way.” My voice doesn’t sound like mine. I grab my coat. My phone lights up one more time as I’m reaching for my keys, with the same unanswered thread, texting again, like it already knows I’ll be back. Understood if tonight isn’t good. The offer’s simple: you need money. I need a wife. Tomorrow, 10 a.m. D.B. I stare at it for exactly one second before I shove the phone in my pocket and run.