Lee Anna didn't leave her room for days. She had decided that she would only eat food that was delivered to her so Sarah got into the habit of leaving cold sandwiches outside her door a few times a day. After a week of this ludicrous behavior Sarah decided that if Lee Anna was going to live at home at 22 she was going to get a job.

"Since you have so much waitressing experience from working in New York I've decided you're going to be working at the diner, staring tomorrow." She said, throwing open the door of Lee Anna's bedroom. Lee Anna glared at her mother from behind her pink comforter.

The next day Sarah shook Lee Anna awake, "Wear something clean," she insisted before going downstairs to make breakfast. Once at the diner Sarah assigned Lee Anna the tables she would be waiting on. Lee Anna accepted her instructions with only a small glare. The day rolled on and Sarah observed her daughter wait tables. As Lee Anna delivered french toast and hamburgers to different tables, Old woman who had babysat by as a child, tried to pry into her personal life and unravel the mystery of why she had returned. Young boys that were known around town as being trouble makers like to stare at Lee Anna's thin frame as she would walk past their tables. Sarah observed Lee Anna skate past the criticism and judgment.

The bell attached to the front door of the diner jingled as Aaron entered, trailed by his curly haired daughter. Sarah smiled at the pair, the way she did every Saturday when Aaron and Nicole came in for breakfast. They sat at their usual booth. "Hey sweetie" Sarah said, smiling at Nicole.

"I'm three." Nicole said. Aaron laughed before instructing his daughter not to stand on the booth.

"So, hows Jen?" Sarah turned to Aaron. The small smile faded off of his face at the mention of his wife.

"She's good" he said trying to restore his smile, " Her mom's in the hospital thought, her lungs aren't good." His eyes looked heavy and sunken in. Aaron had always been an energetic kid. He used to chase Lee Anna around the playground when they were in elementry school together. Years later Aaron . When Lee Anna finally broke up with him he started dating Jennifer. When Aaron was younger Sarah used to wake up to the sound of him and Lee Anna stumbling around downstairs at 3am. She would go downstairs, find them both drunk, with the look of youth and frivolity still frozen on their face, even after being caught.

"Please sit down Nicole," he said, all humor lost from his face. He looked way too serious to be 23.

Sarah took their orders and moved behind the chrome counter in the front of the diner to help other customers. She couldn't help but continue to watch Aaron. He would stare at her as she took orders. Sarah knew marriage hadn't been what he had expected. When Sarah had been first married she would wake up late at night and be unable to fall asleep because of Andy's snoring. Her mind would be filled with concerns about their rent, whether or not her cooking was good enough, or if he really loved her.

Lee Anna was surprised when she was Aaron sitting in a booth. The little girl looked so much like him. They had the same red hair and big green eyes. She wondered who the mother was. It had almost been her married, Aaron had proposed, senior year. He had passed her a piece of notebook paper during sixth period instructing her to meet him in the parking lot. He had driven her out to the farm his parents owned. He had pulled her hand, taking her down by the creek. Lee Anna had laughed as they had jumped over cow shit and through weeds. "Marry me," he said, getting down on one knee.

"You're kidding," she said, trying to maintain the laugh in her voice.

"No, I want to marry you. When we graduate we'll go somewhere, get married."

"We can't get married." There was nothing to laugh at, but Lee Anna tried anyway, everything was too serious.

"Lee Anna, I love you. I want to marry you," Aaron said.

Lee Anna could needed to escape the memory. She walked quickly past the cherry red booths. She could have been that girls mother, she could have been someone's mother.

Sarah saw her daughter rushing towards the kitchen. "Are you ok?" she said, finally reaching her daughter. The kitchen was hot and smelt strongly of hamburgers.

"Who's the girl?" Lee Anna asked, leaning against the wall, reaching her hands into her hair.

Sarah stared at her daughter, she knew exactly what she was thinking about. "She's Aarons daughter, Nicole," Sarah said.

"Oh god, I could have been her mother. You know."

"You did the right thing, even if it doesn't feel like it." Sarah wrapped her arm around her daughter.

"I know, I know. I mean, what else would I have done, but man." Lee Anna let her arms drop down to her side, She looked up at her mother, "The worst part is, I named it. I know it wasn't a baby. I know I shouldn't have, but I named it, her."

"It was a girl?" Sarah asked, unsure of how to comfort her daughter.

"I dunno, well, I knew. I named her Andrea."

"Andrea's a good name," Sarah said quietly. She looked down at the dirty linoleum floor.

"Yeah, I thought so, Andrea, I thought that was a good name."

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