Chapter 3 - Six Hours of Filing
The state of Nevada requires every marriage license issued by the county to be logged into the permanent registry by midnight on the day of issuance. Most clerks batch them at the end of the shift, but I didn't wait.
At 1:15 PM, during my twenty-minute lunch break, I sat at my computer with a tub of lukewarm Greek yogurt that I didn't eat.
I pulled up the central database.
System Administrator credentials allowed us to see pending filings across all chapels in the Las Vegas valley. By 1:42 PM, a digital record popped up from The Chapel of the Heavenly Bells on South Las Vegas Boulevard.
Officiant: Reverend Peter J. Connolly. Groom: Ryan Thomas Hails. Bride: Ava Louise Brooks. Status: Solemnized. Time of Ceremony: 1:36 PM.
Attached to the electronic filing was a high-resolution photo taken by the chapel's automated camera—a service that cost an extra thirty-five dollars.
In the photo, Ryan was wearing a plastic flower lei over his dark suit. Ava was holding a bouquet of silk red roses that the chapel kept in a bucket by the door. She was laughing, her face turned up toward his, her hand pressed flat against his chest—right over his heart, right over the soft white cotton of the shirt I had ironed for him on Tuesday morning.
Ryan wasn't looking at the camera either. He was looking down at her, his head tilted at that specific twenty-degree angle he used when he was listening to someone he thought was the most interesting person in the room.
I stared at the image on my monitor for sixty seconds. My eyes didn't water. My chest didn't heave. A strange, quiet stillness had descended over me, like the silence in the office after the air conditioning shuts off at the end of the day.
I clicked Approve.
The system generated the official Marriage Certificate Number: NV-2026-088912.
It was legal. It was binding. In the eyes of the State of Nevada, the United States Federal Government, and any court of law from Carson City to Washington D.C., Ryan Hails was the lawful husband of Ava Brooks.
At 4:30 PM, my shift ended.
I cleared my desk. I put my stapler in the top drawer. I aligned my sticky notes in a neat stack beside the computer monitor. I took my spare cardigan off the back of the chair, folded it over my arm, and walked into the supervisor's office.
"Brenda," I said.
Brenda looked up from a stack of annulment petitions. She took off her reading glasses, letting them hang by their beaded chain. "Yeah, Nora? You look pale. You getting that bug that's going around the third floor?"
"I'm taking my accrued personal leave," I said. "Starting Monday."
Brenda frowned. "Nora, your wedding is in six weeks. You were supposed to take your leave starting the twentieth of next month."
"I know," I said. "I need it now. I have two hundred and forty hours of banked time."
She looked at me for three long seconds, her sharp brown eyes reading the set of my mouth, the stillness of my shoulders, the absence of the engagement ring that usually sat on my left ring finger.
I had taken it off at 2:00 PM and put it in the small velvet pouch I kept in my purse for when I washed my hands.
"Is this about that boy who came to your window this morning?" Brenda asked softly.
"The paperwork is complete," I replied, avoiding the question. "I've filed the coverage schedule on the internal drive. Jenny can take my Tuesday shifts."
Brenda didn't ask another question. She reached for her pen, signed the bottom of my leave slip with a heavy, angry stroke, and handed the pink copy back to me.
"Take six weeks, Nora," she said quietly. "Take the whole damn year if you need to. And don't you dare check your work email."
"Thank you, Brenda," I said.
May you like
I walked out of the building, through the metal detectors, and into the parking lot. The Las Vegas air was seventy-two degrees, dry and smelling of exhaust and hot asphalt.
I got into my Honda Civic, started the engine, and drove home to our apartment on West Sahara Avenue.
