There’s been a change of staff at work. Jim fired everyone except me. And himself, obviously.

The cook is new, as are the other waiters.

I don’t dare ask what happened or what made Jim do something so drastic.

He’s grumpier than ever, and I can hardly stand him.

No one’s coming in all day. There’s one customer, and he just orders coffee and I watch with dismay as he pours sugar after sugar into it. “I like a whole hell of a lot of sugar,” he says, speaking with a thick Russian accent.

When he leaves, there’s simply nothing to do. I start mopping the floors but then Jim growls at me to stop. So I retreat to the back room where I pick up one of the romance novels that’s been sitting there for ages. There’s one I haven’t read before, and I pick it up and try to concentrate on it.

I finally get my eyes to concentrate on the words and wind up sinking myself into the story. The world around me seems to fade. That’s what it’s all about really, a big escape from the horrors of the daily routine, the grind. Of course, Will is really what makes it all worth while for me. He’s feeling better today, a lot better. Those antibiotics really work, whatever anyone says.

The novel follows an investment banker whose wife died three years ago. He’s searched and searched all over the world for love and hasn’t ever found it. The character has the money to travel, and travel he does. He visits China, Vietnam, Russian, Mexico, Belize, and a dozen others, some of which I’m embarrassed to say that I’ve never even heard of.

I get to the point in the book where the wealthy banker, who is conveniently retired from work, meets a young woman ten years his junior. They’re about to kiss, when Old Jim interrupts me.

“What the hell are you doing in here?” he growls at me.

“What do you want me to be doing?” I say.

“Something,” he growls.

What’s with him? He’s in an even worse mood than normal.

“You know,” I say. “I’m tired of this. You told me that you wanted me to stop mopping. And there’s nothing left to do. There aren’t any customers. You’ve fired everyone. What the hell is your problem?”

He’s shaking with anger. “No one talks to me like that,” he says.

I need this job, but not this much. I can find another one. I can support Will and myself working at just about anywhere else. The tips would be better at another place, anyway.

“I quit,” I say.

I take off my apron and throw it down on the ground.

I walk out, shaking with anger and nerves.

But when I get outside, the autumn air cools me, and I take a deep breath.

It’s going to be OK. I did the right thing, even if it was completely spontaneous, completely unplanned, and possibly more than a little stupid.

After all, I do need a job.

My phone rings.

“Hey,” says Shane. “What are you up to?”

“Oh, not much. I just quit my job, that’s all.”

“You what?”

“Yeah, I just couldn’t take it anymore. My boss is a complete asshole.”

“Damn, so what are you going to do? I mean, are you going to be OK financially?”

“Yeah,” I say, sighing. “I will, eventually. I have to get another job. But the upside is that I’ll have a few more days free this week until I find another job. Shouldn’t be that hard. There’s always a shortage of waitresses in this town.”

“Well I’m sorry to hear about all that. Hey, I was calling to see if you wanted to come to my game.”

“Your game?”

“Yeah, it’s coming up, don’t know if you heard about it.”

“I don’t follow football much, truthfully.”

What I don’t say is that I’ve been following him, just not football. I still don’t know the first thing about the game.

He laughs. “So you want to come or what?”

“Sure,” I say.

“You can bring Will if you want. I can get as many tickets as I want.”

“Uh, I don’t know. That might be a lot for him. He’s still pretty young, you know. Maybe I’d just better come myself. I can leave with him my friend Jane.”

“Whatever you think is best,” says Shane. “I’m going to have to be studying up pretty hard… and I’ve got some other stuff going on up until the game. But I was hoping we could hang out after.”

“Sure, that sounds great.”

We say goodbye, with him promising to send me the information about the tickets.

Going to a football game? I must really be into Shane again. I mean, I know I am, but… If I’m going to sit through a football game just for him, then there must really be something between us.

I put my phone away in my handbag and suddenly remember again where I am and what I just did.

I sigh. Now it’s time to hit the pavement for another job. I want to kick back and relax, but the reality is that the sooner I find another job, the better.

I get into my car and look through a file folder that I have in the backseat. It still has my resumes in it for when I was applying to jobs the last time. Not that the resume matters much. In my experience, food service jobs don’t really require a resume the way a desk job might. Sure, it’s better to show up with a piece of paper in hand, but what’s actually on the resume is somewhat inconsequential. It’s more about presentation, about showing up, and about appearing reliable.

There’s a coffee shop down the block, so I get out of my car again without moving it and start walking there. I didn’t apply to coffee shops the last time around because I figured I’d make more at a restaurant. But who knows. The tips have been getting lower and lower. Either the customers are getting cheaper or there are less of them. It’s probably a combination of factors. Who knows. Maybe my luck will be better at a coffee shop.

As I walk, my mind turns to Will. He’s feeling better, which is good. My thoughts turn to his overall happiness and how it’s going to be as he grows up. It’s going to be tough without a man in the picture for him. It’s going to be tough if I can’t get a better job. I’ll end up missing quite a bit of his growing years. I might not be able to be there when he has school plays and team sporting events. This makes me feel impossibly sad. But what makes me feel even worse is the thought that he’ll want to have a dad…

The solution is right in front of me.

I have to tell Shane that he’s Will’s dad. I have a growing sense of what type of person Shane is, and it seems as if he’s the kind of guy who will actually want to be a dad. I know he’d want to do the right thing and be there for his kid.

But to do that he has to know he has a kid.

The guilt washes through me.

I mean, I made an effort to tell him when it happened. But now it’s clear to me that he doesn’t know. Shane doesn’t have any idea.

Now it’s my responsibility to tell him.

And I haven’t yet.

I can make up all the excuses that I want. But the reality of it is that I didn’t tell him for a very specific reason. And that reason is that I want to get closer to him. I’m worried that if I tell Shane the truth, he’ll be furious with me for not having told him. He’ll say that I should have made more of an effort to contact him and to let him know what had happened. And maybe he’d be right. Who knows. I did what I could. I was under stress, and I thought Shane was being a huge dick. And who can blame me? He didn’t have exactly the best reputation on campus.

The longer I wait to tell him, the worse it’s going to get.

But if I tell him, I’ll screw up any chance for having a real relationship with him. We’ll end up functioning the way divorced parents would, splitting Will between us.

And who knows how the custody would work out. That could be a disaster.

He’s got plenty of money for lawyers. And I have none.

I’m sweating with anxiety by the time I step into the coffee shop.