After finishing his warehouse rounds, Tarik would see Anida through the bakery's rear window, pressing dough with her palms. Between them lay a yard, two locked gates, and the smell of bread arriving before the first shift. They greeted each other with raised hands. This continued for months, until one morning her electricity failed just as she switched on the oven.
Tarik was not an electrician, which he said before crossing the yard. He helped her telephone a repairman and carried the dough into a cool storeroom. They waited on empty crates. Anida talked about her former husband, who thought her work seemed romantic until he had to eat dinner alone. Tarik admitted that his relationships generally failed to survive the third weekend he was on duty.
He invited her for coffee on Saturday. She agreed, forgetting she was filling an order for a hiking club. He forgot he was covering for a sick colleague. They sent apologies in the same minute. Their second attempt failed when Anida fell asleep on the bus and woke at the opposite end of town. Tarik had already eaten two pastries while waiting.
"Perhaps this is telling us something," she said on the phone. She did not want a relationship made of exhausted apologies. Tarik did not promise to change shifts. The job suited him because he helped his brother in a workshop during the afternoons. He asked her not to confuse his schedule with a lack of interest. Anida admitted that she had always accepted other people's hours, then resented nobody noticing hers.
They met on Tuesday at six in the morning, on a bench outside a closed florist. Anida brought warm bread; Tarik brought a thermos of coffee and two clean cups. There was no music or neat tablecloth. A street cleaner had to ask them to lift their feet. Anida laughed so loudly that Tarik forgot the story about an unusual night patrol he had prepared.
Soon the bakery received an offer of larger premises, with an obligation to open on Sundays. Anida thought aloud while Tarik listened without suggesting she decline for his sake. She calculated the costs and hired an assistant for two mornings a week. She did not do it just for love. For the first time in years she could visit the dentist without closing the shop and sleep through a whole morning without guilt.
Their first Sunday breakfast at home still went wrong. Tarik fell asleep at the table while Anida sliced bread. She draped a dish towel over his shoulders, laughed at the absurdity, and went to fetch a blanket. When he woke, the bread was cold. They ate it with lunch without trying to recreate the morning they had missed.