A morning like any other

For the first time this year there is a hint of daylight around the gaps in my curtains that wakes me before my alarm clock does. It is beginning to look like the end of winter. I'm still too sleep-addled to move and lie under my warm duvet with my eyes closed, ignoring the creeping digits on my alarm clock. I lie there, trying not to doze off until its harsh klaxon jolts me to wakefulness at six-thirty. I decide not to hit the snooze button today.

Michael, I say to myself, got to get moving. Like my mother says: one day at a time; keep busy; carry on. I dress in the clothes I wore the night before, pulling on my jeans, buckling my belt. I slept in my t-shirt, but no-one will know. No time for a shower. I booked a click and collect grocery slot at the big Tesco on the Eastern Road. Seven to eight. I've got time.

In the kitchen, there isn't much left in the fridge for breakfast. Only skimmed milk for my tea, which I never use on my cereal. There is only a dribble left of the whole milk, which I drink and throw in the recycling. Condiments. A smidgen of olive spread. A pretty pink bottle of rosé that has been rattling around in the door for months. I stroke the neck of the bottle with the tip of my ring finger. I pull out the tub of olive spread and close the door. 

I put two slices of bread in the toaster and turn on the bean to cup machine. It whirrs to life, clicking and whining. I put a blue mug under it, turn the dial for a long measure, and press the button for black coffee. Double shot. It whirrs some more, grinding the beans from the concealed hopper in the top, but the sound becomes suddenly high-pitched. I lift the flap. It is out of beans, but still soldiers on and tries to make the coffee anyway. I end up with slightly brown hot water. Filling the hopper is my job now. We still have plenty of beans. It is cheaper to buy in bulk. They have lasted longer than I thought they would. I toss the contents of the mug into the sink, fill up the machine, and let the machine go about its noisy business a second time.

After breakfast it is light enough outside, and there's time enough, to inspect the garden after last night's storm. I put on my coat and head out. Aside from a few broken tulip stems and the lawn having been strewn with cherry blossom from the neighbour's tree, it looks okay. The fence between the two gardens is a bit wobbly, but it has always been like that. I walk the perimeter, checking the flower beds for any more broken stems, pulling out bits of twig and bamboo leaves from amongst the delicate shoots of the late-flowering bulbs I planted last autumn. I'll need to do some weeding this weekend. The dandelions are getting big.

I have to be at the click and collect in fifteen minutes but I stop for a moment. I close my eyes, feel the cold wind on my face, breathe in the fresh scent of petrichor. I love the smell of the garden after the rain.

I should be going but something is keeping me here. A sense that I shouldn't move, that I should stay here, still and safe in our garden. Maybe if I don't move now, nothing bad will ever happen again. Maybe if I stay right here, the world will just carry on without me. Maybe the click and collect will collect itself.

I shake my head. It won't do to get maudlin. I must keep busy, carry on, absorb myself with normal day to day chores and distractions. Mum knows best.

I step forward, hear a crunch, wince. I hate it when I crush a snail. I used to keep them in jars filled with lettuce as a small child. My only pets until we got the goldfish. Mum was allergic to pet dander. Another life, when things like my mother's allergy could still affect me and seem like the biggest problem I would ever have. If I had not stayed still, swaying in the breeze like an idiot in the middle of my garden, and instead had stepped forward earlier, would the snail still be alive?

When you are using a computer and make a mistake, you can just hit ctrl-z and undo it. I wish life was like that.

My phone vibrates in my pocket. I can never resist checking it. I take it out but it is just a Sky News notification. I swipe it away just as something in the headline catches my eye, but it is too late. I unlock the phone with the intention of finding the story but my thumb hovers over the text message app icon instead. Force of habit. I click down. Force of habit. I scroll down to Laura's last message. An automatic reflex.

There it is. I shift my phone to my left hand and stroke the smooth glass edge of the screen with the pad of my ring finger.

"I had to leave early sleepy. The click n collect won't collect itself! Back soon xx"

It is just a normal, mundane message. I have spent hours looking for hidden meaning in it without finding any, but this time I notice something new. The sent date. A year ago to the day. How could it have been a year? It was raining that day too. A chance encounter, a misplaced foot at the wrong moment, a crunch, another life snuffed out.

Would she still be here if we had bought the blackout lining for the curtains she had always talked about? If we hadn't liked this garden so much when we viewed the house for the first time? If my mother hadn't been allergic to pets and we had got a dog instead of a goldfish?

If, this day last year, I had decided not to hit my snooze button?