It’s early in the morning, but my workday starts early. I hit the button on the automatic coffee maker and get out the sugar, the cream, and my trusty metal thermos that I’ve used every day the last six years.

I never became a coffee drinker until my dad was getting really sick. Then, with all the sleepless nights, it was the only thing that would keep me going. The doctors say sometimes it’s unhealthy, and then sometimes they say it’s healthy, even to drink up to five cups a day. I don’t have much of a choice either way. It’s not that I don’t have any natural energy, but I’m just trying to do a lot, what with running my own business and raising a daughter.

Correction: I should say starting my own business. For the last year, I worked for others as a physical therapist. It was great, and I learned a lot, and made some professional friends, not to mention became friends with a lot of the clients, but… well, I just knew that I couldn’t keep doing it.

For one thing, I needed more money to support my daughter Scout.

She’s the light of my life.

I realize I was pregnant right around when my dad was getting really sick and needing dialysis. It’s one of my greatest regrets that I never told him. I was going to, but then he died suddenly one night, peacefully in his bed, just the way he wanted to.

It was hard for me for a long time.

When I was pregnant, I had to sell my parents’ house, and I had to use the money to pay off my dad’s medical bills as best as I could. It turns out that dialysis is extremely expensive and the insurance wasn’t covering it for one reason or another.

I finally have health insurance myself now, and I have it for Scout. I try to be the best mom that I can possibly be.

There’s only one thing missing in my life, and that’s a man…

I still think about Dan, obviously. I’ve never told him about Scout. I never told him I was pregnant. I was so caught up in my dad’s death, with arranging the funeral, with selling the house, with getting myself into a stable financial position that I just… I don’t know.

I still blame myself for not telling him. I still see him on TV, and I watch many of his football games when I get the chance. But…

I just feel so guilty about not telling him. He’d be so angry if I told him now. Sooner or later the day is going to come when the truth is going to come out. I just have to decide whether I’m going to tell him… Or if it’s going to happen some other way. Dan’s so famous now that it would become a national scandal, at least that’s how I imagine it. And I don’t want to do that to myself, and certainly not to Dan. And I really don’t want to do that to Scout, thrusting her into the limelight like that. She deserves a normal life. But, then again, she also deserves a father. And I deserve a man, don’t I?

I haven’t been with anyone since Dan. Not a single man.

It’s been a long six years, a long and trying time.

The coffee is ready. The drip has stopped and I pour myself my one cup for this morning before work, and then I pour the other three cups into my thermos, carefully adding the exact amount of cream and sugar that I like, the amounts that keep me going, the amounts that keep my soul feeling warm even on the coldest days when the sun doesn’t come out from behind the clouds.

Scout’s still asleep and I have to go wake her up in a couple minutes.

But for now I have the morning to my lonely self. I sit down at the kitchen table, which is somewhat battered from overuse, since it was second hand to begin with, and I sip my coffee quietly.

The events of the last few years run through my head.

I’d been just fired from the movie theater and I didn’t get another job until after my dad had died. I ended up working at some rinky-dink little hardware store where hardly any customers came in. It didn’t pay much at all, but it gave me plenty of time to study, and I studied my little ass off all day every day during every shift.

I was putting myself through community college right here in town, paying my way class by class. I got straight As from the amount of work I was putting in.

My academic advisor suggested I take a semester off of school when Scout was about to be born, but I didn’t want to do that. I couldn’t do that. I knew that I had to push myself if I was going to provide a good life for Scout.

For some reason, the thought of asking Dan for financial assistance never crossed my mind. For one thing, I’d become independent with my dad’s death. There was no one to help me out with it. My mom and dad were both gone. I got used to doing everything myself.

Also, I didn’t want to tell Dan… the reasons… well, I’m not sure the reasons are ever going to be clear to me exactly. I can make up all the excuses I want. I can justify it anyway I want to myself, but in the end… I didn’t do the right thing, and I have to live with that, with those choices.

Time to wake up Scout.

I head up to her room, which I’ve done completely myself. When I was pregnant, I painted the entire room, and even learned how to build some basic furniture myself. Of course, I didn’t know what I was doing, but I didn’t have any money either, so I did the best I could.

When I was pregnant, I became very cautious about anything that might harm Scout. I just wanted her to be healthy and enjoy a good life. So I did my research on all the paints and all the toxins they might contain. I researched everything, down to exactly what foods I should eat during the pregnancy. And I spent all the money I had on eating exactly the right way.

“Good morning, Scout,” I say, leaning over the bed. Her hair, which is just like Dan’s and reminds me of him every time I see it, is spilling messily out of her head.

“Mom?” she says sleepily, and I gently shake her until she wakes up.

But once she wakes up, wow, is she awake.

She’s a little bundle of energy and honestly, it’s hard to keep up.

She wants to do everything at once, and I feel like a slow, old adult, although I’m not even 30 yet.

“Come on, Scout,” I say. “Let’s get you some breakfast.”

She sits at the kitchen table and reads one of her books from school while I scramble some eggs for us. I also pour her a granola cereal with some milk, with chopped up bananas in it. I have to hide the fruit in her food sometimes, because for some reason she’s decided that fruit is gross, unless it’s chopped up and hidden away in other foods, that is.

“Mom, what’s this word mean?” says Scout.

“What are the letters, Scout?” I say.

“F-I-E-L-D,” she reads.

“Field,” I say. “It can be a field out in nature, or maybe on a farm. Also, football fields…”

I trail off.

“You mean like the kind where my dad plays?”

“That’s right, honey,” I say, without saying anything more.

I haven’t told Scout a lot about her father, but I’ve told her that he was a famous football player. She used to ask question after question about him, but I never knew what to say, and I think she could tell that the questions were making me feel uncomfortable. In reality, they just made me feel guilty. Why should Scout grow up without a father? It’s not fair. Not that it’s that unusual these days, of course, because most of the kids in her kindergarten class have divorced parents. I’d guess that divorced parents are actually the majority these days—or, in my case, not even married, and yet still not together.

“Here you go, Scout,” I say, serving her the scrambled eggs.

“Where’s the hot sauce?” she says, getting up and practically sprinting over to the cupboards.

“You sure you want hot sauce this early?” I say. “Remember how spicy it was for you before?”

“Of course I want it,” says Scout, her eyes wide with excitement.

I don’t really know where her obsession with hot sauce came from.

“OK,” I say, reaching high up on the shelf for her. “Here’s the bottle. Just be careful with it and don’t put too much on.”

Of course, Scout douses her eggs with as much hot sauce as she possibly can, and in less than ten minutes, she’s trying to put the fire out by downing milk.

“Maybe a little less next time, OK?” I say, giving her a wink.

I have a terrible thought for a moment: am I a bad mother for giving my daughter hot sauce? No, I don’t think so, though. These thoughts are always swimming around, popping up once in a while. Actually, if I step back and think about it, I think that giving her a somewhat more or less free reign to experiment with things herself is good. After all, how is she supposed to learn things if she can’t experiment? And hot sauce is pretty harmless in the end.

We get into my old station wagon and drive the ten minutes to her school.

I pull up into the car loop.

“Hope you have a good day, Scout,” I say. “Did you remember to bring your book?”

She nods her head. She’s dressed in a cute little dress. In a couple (well, a few more, but you know what I mean, how time flies) years, I know she’ll be a teenager, and I won’t be able to have any say in how she dresses. She’ll probably be wearing torn jeans and… maybe I’ll have found myself a man by then.

I watch as Scout gets out of the car and jogs off towards her friends who are getting off the bus. One of the kindergarten teachers is on bus and car duty and she gives me a wave. I wave back, put the car in gear, and start driving down the road to work.

It’s a cold November day, but I put the windows down just a little, to feel the air…

It’s almost Thanksgiving, just like that time six years ago when Dan was here.

I wonder if I’ll ever see him again, and I wonder if I’ll ever forget him? I can’t, though. There’s no way I could ever get him out of my head, even if he wasn’t Scout’s father.

OK. I’ve got to get my head clear for work. I try to push the thoughts of Dan out, but it just makes the images and memories stronger somehow.

This isn’t my first day on the job, but it’s the first month. And I’m the boss, so everyday feels like the first day on a new job. Fortunately, I’m starting to get used to it.

I run my own physical therapy center, one that’s a little unusual in that it’s based in a pool.

Sure, I’ve gotten criticism, plenty of criticism, for doing things my own way, for making waves.

“Morning, Sam,” I say to the young guy who’s my assistant. He’s studying right now to be a physical therapist, and he thought this would be a good job to get his foot in the door.

“Hey there,” he says, without looking up from his computer.

He’s a nice guy, and very competent. The only thing is that he’s dressed like a punk, with a huge pink mohawk that juts up at least a foot from his squat little head.

I don’t have a problem with the way he dresses, and frankly I think everyone should dress how they want to. I have, however, warned him quite clearly that other employers won’t be quite as lenient, especially when it comes to the physical therapy world. It’s important in this business to look professional, to look like people want to actually take your advice.

Myself, I opt for something simple. I wear those yoga style pants, but they’re a little thicker, and not quite as revealing. But they are tight, and sure I’ve had guys checking out my ass from time to time. But most of the time they keep it professional.

I’m still debating about whether I should wear a swimsuit under my clothes, or just change into it.

It’s expensive renting a pool, but I know that the therapeutic benefits are going to be worth it for the clients. It’s not a huge pool, either. It doesn’t have to be an Olympic sized pool since most of the clients are going to be older and just working on getting their basic movements back. They’re not going to be doing laps too often.

The smell of chlorine is still something that I have to get used to.

Sometimes I do dress it up a little, if I’m doing something more like a business meeting. But I still keep it simple then, with a collared shirt, and some khaki pants.

“Anything going on today?” I say. “Or still just one booking?”

The business is doing well, but not quite as well as I could have expected. But no one has really done this kind of joint physical therapy-pool business before. I’m really striking out on new territory, and I do have moments of doubt where I wonder if I’m even really doing the right thing at all.

When I get more clients, I imagine I’ll just be in the pool or on the deck all day long, and then I probably won’t be changing out of my swimsuit at all, but just wearing it all day long. Those days are hopefully going to come soon, when by word of mouth my business starts spreading.

Right now, I just have to do the best work I can with the clients that I do have. Most of them are clients that know me from the old practice where I used to work. They respect my abilities and my skills, and know that I can do a good job. They trust me, and I hope in the future more clients will be trusting me just the same.

“There’s one new booking today,” says Sam, not looking up from the computer.

“Yeah?” I say, trying to contain the excitement in my voice.

“It’s a Mrs. Cambridge,” he says. “She wanted an appointment early. Says her son is going to bring her in. She hurt her hip and she doesn’t want to have an operation.”

I frown.

“Those can be tricky,” I say. “A lot of people don’t want the operations, but often that’s what they really need. I guess we’ll see what we can do, eh?”

Sam nods.

“Is the pool all ready?” I say.

“Yeah, I just added a new bucket of chlorine this morning.”

“Thanks,” I say. “When is her appointment?”

“About twenty minutes,” he says.

“That early?” I say.

“Yeah, I know it’s early. But you told me to keep the whole day’s schedule open no matter what.”

“Thanks,” I say. “It’s fine. I’d better get changed.”

Sam finally looks up and me and nods.

“Just keep working on that website,” I say. “It’ll be nice to have a place where the clients can find us.”

Sam’s doing a great job on the website, and I know it’s mostly because he hopes to work here as a therapist once he gets his license. He’s studying hard and he’s a good kid.

I remember back when I was working for other people. It wasn’t that long ago. They treated me fine at the physical therapy place, but the movie theater was a different story. That was when I was just a kid, really. I think I started working there when I was 18. I had a string of different jobs in the meantime, and they all treated me like dirt. I try not to do the same thing to Sam, and I like the idea of him working here later. I like the idea of him having a vested interest in the business and I try to pay him better as a result. But if I don’t get a lot more clients soon, it’s going to be hard to even pay the costs of the business (operating an indoor pool isn’t cheap) let alone Sam’s wages.

I head into the locker room. I didn’t have this building built specially, so basically it’s an old swim club that was going to be torn down. I think it still has a lot of charm though, even if it could use a little bit of work to spruce the place up.

I open up my locker and take out my one piece swimsuit. This isn’t the beach, and a bikini would probably be seen as inappropriate. I have something that doesn’t show much cleavage, something modest. I strip off my pants and my shirt and stand in my bra and panties, just thinking for a moment before putting on my swimsuit.

I start to unhook my bra and this triggers a memory of the night I spent with Scout’s father, Dan.

Something clicks for me.

Mrs. Cambridge. That’s Dan’s last name. And I’m only twenty minutes away from our old hometown.

Could this possibly be Dan’s mother?

That doesn’t mean necessarily that Dan would be here with her. In fact, it would be quite unusual. Since I know that Dan just played a football game sometime in the last week. (Yes, I still keep tabs on him, by browsing the football pages on the internet, even though I don’t really have any interest in the sport myself.) He’s busy with practice for sure.