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Saturday had been busy, with Smithy and Romana and the kids dragging me out for the day, which I was grateful for, but the park had been a brutal reminder of Paul, who should’ve been there with me and wasn’t.

Even the distraction of the day hadn’t helped me sleep. The bed was too cold, the room too quiet, no little guy snoring next to me in the wee small hours. It’s strange how much of my life he occupied when he was only nine inches tall. But he’d been with me for fifteen years, which is longer than Pippa managed.

I kept my head down at work on Sunday, which wasn’t too dissimilar from how I normally handle a shift, and with no Alice around to lure me into conversation, it was easy to keep to myself and catch up on the designs I’d fallen behind on after leaving early on Friday.

Working is fine.

Working is surviving.

Coming home is awful.

Paul had this way of greeting me the second I walked through the door, racing towards me with his tail wagging like the clappers, almost tap-dancing on the spot. Then, no sooner had he said hello than he’d run into the living room and return with his favourite toy hanging out of his mouth: his scruffy fox, which had definitely seen better days.

He bloody loved that fox.

It was worn thin and ratty in places, but I never had the heart to throw it away, something I attempted on Saturday before immediately feeling guilty and fishing it out of the bin. I ended up bagging it up with the rest of his things I couldn’t bear to part with but also couldn’t bear looking at every time I walked around the house.

The bag is now in the loft: his bed, water bowl, crate, blankets, favourite ball—all the things that once meant everything to him now packed away redundantly in the dark.

My chest tightens.

Alice enters the staffroom, breaking my thoughts.

She wasn’t at work yesterday, something I thought I was grateful for because I wasn’t sure I could’ve faced her. It was easier through my day knowing no one else knew what had happened.

But Alice does know, and she’d want to talk to me, make sure I was okay, and possibly ask me questions I wasn’t ready to answer. Yet as the day wore on, I found myself almost wishing she had been there. Her chatter would’ve given me something else to focus on.

“Hi there.” She says it gently, like she’s stroking my arm with her voice.

“Hi.”

I brace myself for how awkward and uncomfortable this is about to become because Alice visibly inflates, and I know a torrent of words is coming.

“I’m not going to ask you how you’re doing because I know when I’ve had bad news—like not in the same league as your bad news, obviously, but things like when Marty’s stopped selling their Teaser Chicken Wings or Adventure World getting rid of the Rocky Road Mountain roller-coaster or when I was trying to cut down on caffeine and someone told me that tea actually has more caffeine than coffee and I thought my life was basically over—and someone asks me if I’m okay, I suddenly realise I’m actually not okay and the floodgates open. So I’m not being rude when I don’t ask you if you’re okay because I know you’re not. Instead, I’d like to know what time you’re having your lunch.”

She’s like a hand-drier. Once you wave your hands underneath, she doesn’t stop, and then when she finally does, you kind of miss the noise.

“I’m on an early lunch, and I’m okay, thank you.”

“Great.” She puts her lunch in the fridge. “I’ll meet you in the garden. And don’t worry, I have a chicken wrap that makes no mess.”

It feels right, this invite of hers, and I’m even a little excited by the prospect of the mess-free chicken wrap, but then I remember this is my life.

“There’s light rain forecast from twelve onwards,” I tell her before she bounces out of the staffroom.

“I know. I brought my raincoat.”

If you’d have asked me last week if Alice Sutton owned a raincoat or checked weather forecasts in advance, I would’ve said absolutely not.

She is full of surprises.

The second surprise of the day is that Alice is already in the garden, making me wonder how many customers she ignored from ten until twelve to get out here on time, or whether she hid in one of the walk-in cupboards until lunchtime.

Then there’s the third surprise.

On the floor, there are plants.

I spot some hostas that look like they’re at the end of flowering, lavender, blue star juniper, and Mexican orange blossom.