Now this.

For a moment she thought about bringing the information sheet on the soup kitchen back home . . . just in case.

Just in case I let them down.

But that was just for a moment. Lynn ripped the flyer into shreds so small it would be impossible to piece it back together. It was one thing to sign up for Christmas presents, but it was another to receive free food. They weren’t homeless and living on the streets.

Not yet.

Lynn buried the thought and knew she was just tired and sad she couldn’t be with Thomas and Sara today. As she sipped the cup of coffee she was holding, she thought how good a cigarette would taste. But she gave that up. Just like other bad things in her life.

The tiny room she sat in resembled more of a closet than the restaurant’s break room. Every time she moved, her chair would rock from one side to the other. The coffee didn’t work. She needed something stronger, but anything stronger than this sludge she poured for unfortunate patrons all day would be illegal. Which, considering the lousy day she’d had, didn’t seem like the worst thing in the world, though all Lynn wanted to do was get home and make sure the kids were okay.

Happy Thanksgiving, she thought bitterly. Can’t wait to see the Merry Christmas we’re going to have.

The torn strips of paper from the brochure her boss had given her littered the table. Murphy had done it out of kindness, but still it had offended her. Back in Georgia, they never had money, it seemed. But now . . . now everything was different. Now her boss was right. They might just want a nice, decent meal that happened to be free.

“We’re fine, thank you very much,” she had said shortly.

But for a while Lynn did consider it.

Sara was always complaining about one thing or another ever since they’d moved. Her new school, their little trailer in the middle of nowhere, her lack of friends, even the lack of food in their pantry.

We’re the fattest country in the world, with something like a quarter of the people considered obese, yet my daughter complains about being hungry.

Thomas was a different story. He was a growing boy who didn’t need to tell her he needed more food. It was written all over his lanky body. He ate whatever generic items she had at home and did it without complaining.

A nice big meal that happened to be free wouldn’t be such a bad thing.

But no, she still wasn’t bringing them to any soup kitchen in the middle of Greenville. They weren’t homeless and they weren’t helpless. They weren’t drug addicts or alcoholics. They’d just had a little run of bad luck. That was all.

She was the mother and it was her duty to take care of the essentials, stuff like food and shelter. Christmas gifts were extra, and it was okay to let others help them out with a little extra something. That’s why she’d signed up for the Angel Tree program.