Melissa Rice vividly remembers the day her life was turned upside down.

Her husband, Reynaldo, was not a great man. An alcoholic, he also inflicted mental and physical abuse. The one thing he could provide was a paycheck to take care of his three kids.

Reynaldo worked as a subcontractor for local painting companies. Melissa worked the back office, handling the administrative side and learning the mechanics of the business.

That’s when Reynaldo had an on-the-job altercation. The dispute involved another subcontractor, and the homeowner had to get involved. Someone called the police, and Reynaldo was hauled away to jail.

This would have worse consequences than Melissa could have possibly imagined.

She was in the process of working through the legal process for Reynaldo to become a citizen. He was married to a U.S. native, had three children and a job. It seemed like a slamdunk.

Not after the arrest. The Immigration department takes a dim view of committing crimes during the application process.

Now, instead of becoming a naturalized citizen, Reynaldo would be deported back to Honduras. Melissa and her three children would have to fend for themselves, and dig out of the hole he put them in.

“I always tell people I didn’t start from zero; I started from below zero,” Melissa says. “He had ruined my credit. We had no savings. I had literally nothing to my name.

“But I had painting tools.” 

A Mother’s Determination

Melissa was a young mom. She had her first daughter, Susanna, in April 2005 when she was just 18 years old. Two more kids – another daughter and a son – followed in rapid succession. By age 22, Melissa had a brood of three.

Six years later, her husband was getting deported. No Melissa would have to be the breadwinner. Unfortunately, her resume consisted of being a housewife and a mom.

Badly in need of money, Melissa went begging for jobs, starting with former customers of Ronaldo’s. 

“I just explained my situation,” she says. “‘Do you need any painting done? I’m just trying to support my family.’”

Right away, she ran into resistance. She had a sneaking suspicion that it was a form of sexism, that they didn’t believe a woman could get the job done without a man on site.

“They weren’t really interested in hiring me,” she says. “I’d often speak with someone, but then they’d call back asking if it was just me doing the work.”

Melissa remained undeterred. She had no other choice. She took on accent walls, bathroom touch-ups, even front door refinishing. As her reputation grew, so did her confidence and client base.

“I just tried my best to do a really good job and build off referrals from there,” she says.

It wasn’t long before she was hired for her first major project: painting a suite of kitchen cabinets. It was a job far more challenging than any she’d done before.

Everything that could go wrong did.

She had meticulously taped off the area with plastic to prevent overspray. “Their dog got out of the enclosure,” Melissa recalls, “and charged through the plastic.”

She found herself trying to control a sprayer that was blasting paint everywhere like an out-of-control firehose. As she wrestled with the sprayer, the intake pump suddenly came loose, blowing a geyser of paint like an exploding land mine.

“I had to shut everything off, clean the dog, get him put away, then try to recover the area and start over,” Melissa says, laughing. “Thank God these people weren’t home during the day. I probably would have been fired.”

By the time she finished, Melissa could stand back and admire a more than respectable job. It was a rough start, but the early adversity made her stronger. Now she owns her own business: RR Painting Express in Fort Worth, Texas.

“Sometimes that’s how you learn,” she says of her early missteps. “Necessity makes you learn a lot.”

A Daughter’s Duty

For Susanna Rivera, growing up in her father’s shadow wasn’t easy.

She saw the drunkenness, the abusive behavior. Then one day, he just up and disappeared. Susanna became her mother’s helper, the support she needed to keep going.

Melissa did what she could to make ends meet. Lacking a babysitter on summer days, she brought her kids to the jobsite.

“If it was an empty house, she’d let us try rolling paint, covering surfaces, taping things up,” Susanna recalls.

“It wasn’t child labor,” Melissa hastens to add. “It was fun for them.”

These moments with her mom became cherished experiences for Susanna.

“When she brought us along, those were truly core memories,” Susanna reflects. “Those were the times I felt closest to her.”

As she got older, Susanna grew to help her mom in business as well. She handled some of the administrative duties while Melissa was behind the brush. 

Susanna also brought a whole new understanding of social media. Melissa admits she was reluctant at first.

“I swore I’d never download TikTok,” she laughs. “I thought it was just for kids.”

But Susanna saw the potential. By posting job highlights and behind-the-scenes videos, Susanna grew their following and with it, their pool of prospects.

“It’s a way to instill trust,” Susanna explains. “Now when potential clients look us up, they see consistency and dedication – they see who we are.”

A Grandmother’s Legacy

It was Melissa’s grandmother who armed her with the skills she would need to survive when the bottom dropped out. “She taught me how to do accounting by hand, to balance books, and keep track of finances,” Melissa says.

Grandma was a German-Jewish immigrant who escaped the Holocaust. She ran multiple small businesses, including a Christmas tree farm, rental storage units, and an antique dealership.

“She was a real businesswoman,” Melissa says, “ahead of her time.”

Melissa notes that it wasn’t that long ago that women couldn’t even legally have their own bank account without a husband’s permission. Think about how much harder it would have been to leave a toxic relationship.

Recently, Reynaldo came back into the picture. He’s back in America and wants to reconnect with his family.

“He’s still in his addictive behaviors, so we keep the conversations short,” Melissa says.

She’s moved on, and found love again.

His name is Francisco Resendiz. They met in a Facebook group created to connect people in Dallas-Fort Worth for fun gatherings.

“I started joining groups online to network for my painting business,” Melissa says, laughing. “I didn’t expect to meet him that way!”

Melissa found herself flirting with Francisco in the comments. One day, she attended a local Halloween party and there he was.

“He just showed up ‘too cool for school,’” Melissa says. “We had already interacted a bit online, but that was our first real meeting.”

They discovered they had a lot in common. Both were recently divorced and balancing the demands of parenthood.

Over time, they spent more and more time together. A year ago, they got married. Now they own a property big enough to keep animals.

“We’ve got three acres with chickens and roosters,” Melissa says. “It reminds me of my grandmother’s little farm back in Connecticut.”

Moving Forward

Susanna comes from a lineage of strong women. She’s determined not to fall into the same traps.

“A very important lesson that my mom taught me at a very young age that I took with me to the woman that I am now: Never depend on someone else for anything,” Susanna says. “Because as soon as somebody knows that you need them, that you have no exit plan, that you have no Plan B … they’re going to take advantage of it.”

Melissa knows how that sounds. She interjects to correct the record.

“I always told her, there’s nothing wrong with being a housewife,” she says. “I really enjoyed being a stay-at-home mom. I kind of miss it, being able to do stuff at home and keep things all nice and orderly. I love to cook, but it’s more of a chore now that I’m busy all the time.”

Still, Melissa learned the hard way that you always need a fall back plan.

“Even if nothing is wrong in your relationship, you have a great marriage and everything’s fine, what if something were to happen to your husband tomorrow? What would you do? If your whole life, you’ve never known how to do anything except just take care of the house?”

Now Melissa helps other women who are in the same circumstances she was. One mother who had fled from her situation was able to buy a vehicle and eventually move into her own apartment thanks to a job painting for Melissa. She also regularly gets video calls and text messages from women eager to follow in her footsteps of self-reliance.

“A lot of them didn’t realize they could even do something like start their own business, or thought the first steps would be too complicated,” Melissa says. “So I feel I’ve been able to have a positive impact through what I’ve learned in my trials and errors.”

Now that they’re no longer in survival mode, Susanna wants to give her mother time to enjoy herself more. She could rediscover her love of cooking; start playing her flute again.

“One of our main focuses is to make the business less physically demanding on her,” Susanna says, “so she can get back to the things she loves.”