The Jury Duty Spouse

The courthouse smelled like wet wool and toner.

Malik sat beside me with a backpack that rustled. Goldfish crackers. Pickup at 5:40, if we got out of jury assembly before the daycare's late fee started eating our rent.

We had listed each other as spouses on the postponement form.

Not because we had a romance. Because we had a three-year-old named Imani who called both of us by first name and needed the same adult at the same door at the same ugly hour.

Imani was my sister's child. My sister was on nights at the hospital. Malik was my roommate, the one who knew which sippy cup didn't leak, the one whose name was already on the emergency card in the office cubby.

The county would not coordinate two unrelated jurors. Spouses, they said, could request the same week.

So we became spouses on paper, the way people become anything when a form has a box and a child has a schedule.

The clerk's nails tapped the screen.

"Same household, same week, spouse," she recited.

Then her eyes flicked two rows over.

The man in the damp peacoat looked up like he had been waiting for his name and got mine instead.

"Ma'am," the clerk said. "Why does he have you as wife too?"

---

His name was Ryan Pell.

Last month, according to the screen the clerk turned just enough for me to see a blur of fields, he had listed *Tess Pell* as his spouse and asked for a hardship postponement.

I am Tess Cole.

I used to be Tess Pell for fourteen months, which is a long time to keep a name you are trying to put down.

Ryan raised a hand, sheepish, as if we were in a classroom. "That's my ex. She kept the mail. I used the old form. I didn't think—"

"You thought a jury questionnaire was a time capsule," Malik said, too loud for a courthouse.

The clerk's look could have filed itself. "I need one true household. Not a soap opera."

Imani's Goldfish bag crinkled in Malik's backpack like a laugh track.

I stood. My coat dripped on the linoleum. "Ryan and I are divorced. The decree is in a folder in my bag because I am the kind of person who brings folders to government buildings. Malik and I are not legally married. We listed spouse to keep daycare covered. That was a lie. I would like to take it back before you swear me into anything."

The room did the small silence of people who had just found better entertainment than a training video.

Ryan's ears went red. "I listed her because the online form auto-filled from when we had the same address. I clicked through. I wasn't trying to steal her week."

"You listed a wife you don't have," the clerk said. "That's a problem for you. Sit."

She pointed Ryan back to his row.

Then she looked at Malik and me like we were a group project.

"You two. Hallway."

---

The hallway had a vending machine that hummed and a window wet with rain.

The clerk's nameplate said D. OKONKWO. She held a printout that still felt warm.

"I can postpone one of you for childcare as a household member if you bring proof," she said. "I cannot postpone both of you as spouses if you just told me you aren't. Do not make me explain to a judge that I believed a Goldfish backpack."

Malik unzipped the bag and showed the crackers anyway, as if evidence of a toddler could bless a form.

"I'll take a different week," he said. "Tess stays this week. I'll cover pickup. My boss owes me a floating holiday."

"Your boss is not the county," Okonkwo said. Then, softer: "Bring the daycare letter. Bring the divorce decree so I can unhook her from Mr. Pell's file. Do not write spouse again unless a clerk downtown has already done the work."

I nodded. The toner smell followed us even here.

"For the record," I said, "we live together. We co-parent a child who isn't ours by birth. We got scared of a late fee. That's the whole crime."

"It isn't a crime yet because you said it out loud before I called a panel," Okonkwo said. "Keep it that way."

She went back in.

Ryan lingered by the water fountain. He looked like a man who had auto-filled his way into a sequel.

"I didn't know you were here," he said. "I didn't know you had... him."

"I have a roommate," I said. "And a niece. And a last name you don't get to use on a federal questionnaire because the dropdown menu missed me."

Ryan winced. "I'll call and fix mine."

"Do it today."

He left. The peacoat smelled like rain and old cologne I used to pretend I liked.