A sin­gle, ambi­tious woman whose life is all about work tries to have a sin­gle father with a cry­ing baby kicked out of a café. Sur­pris­ing­ly, she runs into him again a year lat­er, but this time, the tables have been turned.

It was a busy Mon­day evening when Lib­by walked into the café, ordered a reg­u­lar cof­fee, and set­tled into the seat over­look­ing New York City’s busy streets.

Ter­ri­ble, ter­ri­ble day it had been for her. With the long meet­ings and projects with tight dead­lines, she was hop­ing to find some time to relax before return­ing home to her yoga med­i­ta­tion and more work before bed.

“Thank you,” she said qui­et­ly as a wait­ress brought her order while Lib­by checked her day plan­ner on her iPad. More meet­ings and work for the next day. Noth­ing out of the ordi­nary.

Lib­by put down her iPad, sipped some hot tea, and took a look around. That’s when she cast a dis­gust­ing glance at the table next to her, where a baby was star­ing at her with big eyes and apple puree all over his mouth…

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Lib­by assumed the decent-look­ing man, who was talk­ing on his phone while his baby gig­gled at a stranger, was a sin­gle father. Why else would he be in for­mal wear at a café at 7 p.m., feed­ing a child, his office bag beside him?

“Dis­gust­ing!” Lib­by mut­tered under her breath before look­ing away.

Lib­by hat­ed babies. She despised how cranky and needy of affec­tion they were. But it seemed like the baby she called dis­gust­ing loved her.

Everyone has a story to tell. You can’t judge someone until you know their story.

As Lib­by turned away, the baby began to cry, and his tears flowed down his cheeks like a water­fall.

“What a piece of mess!” she thought angri­ly.

When Lib­by turned to look at the table a few sec­onds lat­er, she saw that the baby’s father was still on the phone, which irri­tat­ed her. She had had a long day at work, and the last thing she need­ed to hear was the baby’s cries.

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“Excuse me, sir!” she called out to the man from her table. “Ask your baby to be qui­et! He’s cry­ing like he won’t see anoth­er day!”

The man turned around and whis­pered a sor­ry before con­tin­u­ing the call and rock­ing his baby simul­ta­ne­ous­ly. Noth­ing changed. The baby kept cry­ing, and Lib­by was so angry that she called the wait­ress.

“I’m a reg­u­lar here, and this is the bare min­i­mum you could do for me. Please move them to anoth­er table where I won’t be able to hear that obsti­nate baby’s cries! Or sim­ply kick them out! Do any­thing; just get them out of my sight!”

“Ma’am,” said the wait­ress apolo­get­i­cal­ly. “As you can see, all the tables inside are cur­rent­ly full, and the only open slots are on the ter­race, which may be too cold for the baby. I’ll speak with them…”

The wait­ress approached the man’s table, said some­thing to him, and Lib­by noticed the man hang up the phone.

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“Well, if she has a prob­lem, she should be the one to move,” Lib­by over­heard the man say­ing. “It’s not even my fault, but I apol­o­gize for the incon­ve­nience.”

Lib­by could­n’t con­tain her anger as she over­heard that. She walked over to the man’s table and told him to get out. That’s when the cry­ing child threw some apple puree on Lib­by’s out­fit, which enraged her fur­ther.

“Jason, boy!” cried the man. “That’s not right. Calm down!”

“Hey, look, I’m sor­ry about that,” said the man to Lib­by. “I can make it up to you, and—”

“That’s ridicu­lous!” exclaimed Lib­by. “Of both you and the child! I’m done with this place,” she said as she stormed out of the café, glar­ing angri­ly at the man and the wait­ress.

Lib­by nev­er vis­it­ed the café again, and she hoped to nev­er run into that man and his child again. She despised him as much as she despised that baby.

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A year went by, and Lib­by found her­self a hand­some man at the com­pa­ny where she worked. Trevor was a mere con­tract employ­ee, but he was charm­ing, polite, con­fi­dent, and every­thing Lib­by had ever want­ed in a man. He fell for her first, but she fell hard­er, and soon after, she found out she was preg­nant with his child.

When her baby bump became vis­i­ble, Lib­by announced the preg­nan­cy news to her par­ents, but the old­er cou­ple did­n’t appre­ci­ate it.

“We’d rather have you unmar­ried for the rest of your life,” said her father grumpi­ly. “I don’t want that man to be involved with you or our fam­i­ly, Lib.”

“Your father is right, hun,” said her moth­er. “He does­n’t deserve you. He does­n’t have our class, and well, the baby… you can choose to keep it. We’ll see what we can do to help you raise your child.”

Lib­by was shocked. She had expect­ed her par­ents would be hap­py, but quite the oppo­site hap­pened. Because Lib­by was adamant about mar­ry­ing Trevor, both of them were kicked out of the company—they worked for her father’s company—and Lib­by’s par­ents cut her off from the will.

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A few months lat­er, Lib­by moved into Trevor’s stu­dio apart­ment because she could­n’t afford her rent any­more. Trevor was work­ing for a small pri­vate firm then, and he sup­port­ed her and their child.

Months lat­er, when the lit­tle gift of God came into Lib­by and Trevor’s life, they decid­ed to give her all the love despite their strug­gles. Trevor start­ed work­ing two jobs, and Lib­by start­ed look­ing for work too.

One day, she was called for an inter­view at an edi­to­r­i­al com­pa­ny, and she had to take baby Eve with her.

Lib­by loved writ­ing ever since was a kid. So she was very excit­ed about the inter­view. How­ev­er, as she neared the inter­view room, the oth­er appli­cants judged her because she was the only one car­ry­ing a baby.

“I’m afraid you won’t be able to car­ry her inside,” the lady out­side the inter­view room told her as her name was called.

“I’m sor­ry,” Lib­by said. “If I leave her alone, she’ll be a nui­sance to oth­ers. Please, under­stand.”

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The woman sighed and even­tu­al­ly allowed her.

Lib­by walked into the room, unaware of what await­ed her. When she saw the inter­view­er’s face, she froze in shock. He was none oth­er than the man she’d been rude to months ago.

“Do I know you?” He raised a brow as he asked Lib­by to take a seat. “You seem famil­iar.”

“Oh well,” said Lib­by shy­ly. “We met at the café, and your baby was cry­ing…”

“Ah!” he smiled. “So we know each oth­er. Please take a seat. Also, I hope you know that babies are not per­mit­ted at work.”

Before Lib­by would say any­thing, Eve start­ed cry­ing. And she just would­n’t stop.

Lib­by was embar­rassed.

“Oh no, I’m so sor­ry. I can’t leave Eve home alone, and it’s just—”

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“May I?” he asked.

“What?” she said, con­fused.

“May I hold her for a moment? I think I’ll be able to qui­et her.”

Lib­by nod­ded because she did­n’t have any oth­er option. She hand­ed Eve over to the man, and the baby girl stopped cry­ing as soon as he began play­ing with her.

“She seems to like you,” Lib­by said. “That’s not like her!”

“I love babies,” said the man. “I’m Jonathan, by the way. Besides being the com­pa­ny direc­tor, I’m a sin­gle dad to my lit­tle baby boy. He’s cur­rent­ly with my sis­ter. I don’t like leav­ing kids to strangers.”

Lib­by could­n’t con­trol her tears. “I don’t know how else to put this, but I can’t leave Eve alone. I’m not in the best finan­cial shape, and since I can’t bring her to work, I don’t think I’ll be the right can­di­date for this posi­tion. Sor­ry.”

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“No, that’s fine. I’d like to inter­view you. We don’t want to lose an impor­tant can­di­date. Please…”

Jonathan inter­viewed Lib­by, and he hired her. He also allowed Lib­by to bring Eve to work as long as it did­n’t inter­fere with her work.

“I’m a father, too, and I under­stand,” he said. “Not to men­tion, we’re all human at the end of the day, Mrs. Walsh. I guess hav­ing a lit­tle employ­ee with us would be great!”

Lib­by was beyond grate­ful to Jonathan. She not only bagged a job that day, but she under­stood life was more than just work.

Jonathan was a sin­gle father who han­dled most of the com­pa­ny’s respon­si­bil­i­ties, and she’d seen what a won­der­ful father he was. While he was rais­ing a child on his own, he was also doing his best for his com­pa­ny and oth­ers. He taught Lib­by that being human comes first and fore­most.

What can we learn from this sto­ry?

• Every­one has a sto­ry to tell. You can’t judge some­one until you know their sto­ry. Lib­by despised Jonathan and his cry­ing baby and regret­ted it months lat­er when she met the real Jonathan, the kind man who hired her and sym­pa­thized with her sit­u­a­tion.
• Life is a cir­cle. What goes around comes around. When Lib­by found her­self in a sit­u­a­tion where Eve was cry­ing, she real­ized how wrong she was to despise Jonathan’s child.

Share this sto­ry with your friends. It might bright­en their day and inspire them.

If you enjoyed this sto­ry, you might like this one about a bus dri­ver who kicked out pas­sen­gers for yelling at a new mom with a cry­ing baby, only to be appre­hend­ed by the cops.

This piece is inspired by sto­ries from the every­day lives of our read­ers and writ­ten by a pro­fes­sion­al writer. Any resem­blance to actu­al names or loca­tions is pure­ly coin­ci­den­tal. All images are for illus­tra­tion pur­pos­es only. Share your sto­ry with us; maybe it will change some­one’s life. If you would like to share your sto­ry, please send it to info@amomama.com.