The other six o'clock

Anika had put out two mugs before Cal told her it wasn't six yet.

She looked at the kitchen clock. "It's nearly seven."

"On that one."

He held up his phone. Five forty-eight. Anika looked from the phone to the clock and then at Cal, who was wearing the same expression he wore when a parcel arrived for the wrong house.

At their feet, Dot walked to the place where her breakfast bowl usually stood.

"You changed it last night," Anika said.

"I changed my alarm."

"I saw you holding the clock."

Cal looked at the little round clock on the shelf. He had picked it up the previous evening to get a letter that had slipped behind it. At the time, Anika had been passing the doorway with a towel over one shoulder. Apparently, between them, that had counted as changing the clock.

"I was getting the electricity bill."

Dot returned from the empty place by the cupboard. She passed Cal's ankle, stopped beside Anika, and looked up.

It was the Sunday the clocks went back. Their phones had dealt with this while they slept. The kitchen clock had waited for someone with thumbs.

Anika took one mug off the counter, considered it, and put it back beside the other.

"Well, we're up."

Cal opened the cupboard and measured Dot's usual breakfast. She moved ahead of him, white paws stepping neatly around the corner of the floor mat. He set the bowl down. Dot lowered her head before he had finished straightening.

Anika filled the kettle. The window was still dark enough to show the room reflected in it: two people standing in the kitchen, one cat eating, nobody quite ready to be there.

"I thought I'd slept properly," Cal said.

"You did."

"It feels less impressive now."

She opened the coffee tin. The lid made its usual small pop, and Dot's ears turned without her lifting her face from the bowl.

Cal fetched the clock from the shelf. Turning it over, he found a small wheel, a battery cover, and no indication of which way he ought to turn the wheel. He tried one direction. The hands went forward.

"That's not going to help," Anika said.

"I was establishing something."

He turned the wheel the other way. Anika watched over his shoulder and then stepped back to reach the coffee pot. For several seconds the only sounds were the kettle warming and Dot working through breakfast.

"What time have you got?" Cal asked.

"You've got the phone."

He had put it in his shirt pocket to leave both hands free. He took it out, checked the time, put it on the counter, and began turning the wheel again.

"You could put it down facing you," Anika said.

"I've committed now."

The kettle clicked off. Anika poured the water, waited, and poured a little more. Cal moved the minute hand carefully toward the right place, overshot, and came back. He held the clock upright.

Five fifty-four.

They both checked the phone.

Five fifty-four.

"There," Cal said.

He returned it to the shelf. It had a circular patch of less dusty paint behind it, and he spent a moment trying to cover the whole patch.

Dot finished eating. She stood beside her bowl, licked one side of her mouth, and walked over to the table. Anika pulled her own chair out far enough to sit down. Dot passed beneath it and rubbed her cheek once along the table leg.

There was no further breakfast business to discuss.

Cal brought the mugs over. He had put the coffee tin away without its lid. Anika could see it from the table, sitting open beside the spoon rest, but she let him sit down before mentioning it.

He closed his eyes.

"I'm only saying it now because we'll both forget."

He went back, fitted the lid, and returned. Outside, the window had begun to lose the reflection of the room. A pale strip of sky showed above the fence.

When the clock reached six, Anika pointed at it with her mug.

"That one?"

Cal checked the phone, though he didn't need to.

"The other one."

Under the table, Dot began washing a front paw. Cal took his first sip of coffee and immediately set the mug down again. It was still too hot.