At 6.10, she turned the sign on the door to Closed. At 6.12, her phone rang.
The caller wanted to know whether she covered their area. She did. They asked how the service worked, how long it took and what they needed to send her.
None of the questions was difficult. That was the problem. Each answer took only a few minutes.
At 6.30, an email arrived asking about prices. At 6.45, someone sent a message about availability. At 7.05, she remembered the invoice she had not finished.
The business had started at her kitchen table. In those early days, being available for everything felt natural. She knew every customer, answered every call and remembered every detail.
Customers appreciated the personal service. They often mentioned how quickly she replied.
The business grew. The questions did not become more complicated. There were simply more of them.
Her website showed the company name, photographs and a list of services. It proved the business existed, but it could not explain enough for anyone to move forward without her.
So she explained the same things every day: what the service included, where she worked, what it might cost and what happened next.
Somewhere along the way, she had become the receptionist, salesperson, scheduler, accounts department and customer support desk. She was also the person who still had to do the actual work.
She told herself this was simply what running a small business meant.
One evening, a friend asked why she never switched off her phone. She answered without thinking: if she did not reply, nothing moved.
The words stayed with her.
Every part of the business seemed connected to her by an invisible thread. Enquiries, quotes, bookings and even questions she had answered dozens of times waited for her hand to pull them forward.
The business was not falling apart. It was doing something quieter. It had learnt to wait for her.
She closed the laptop at 10.18. A moment later, the phone lit up again.
Before replying, she looked around the silent room and understood that she was not only working in the business. She was carrying it from one day to the next, one small answer at a time.
Whenever she put it down, even for an evening, the whole thing waited exactly where she had left it.