The slights kept coming. Small ones. The kind you'd feel silly complaining about.

I was taken off the flower rota. Felicity said they wanted “a more modern style” of arrangement. I'd done the church flowers every other Sunday for thirty-eight years.

Then, before the special Fundraising Service in May, Gerald Pike came to see me after church.

“Joan,” he said, looking embarrassed. “Felicity's asked if you'd mind sitting somewhere else next Sunday. The front pews are being reserved for major donors. Just for the one service.”

The front pew on the left. Arthur and I had sat there every Sunday for forty-nine years. After he died, I kept sitting there. His side of the pew was still worn smooth from where he used to rest his hand.

“Of course,” I said. “I'll sit at the back.”

Gerald looked like he wanted to say something else. Then he didn't.

That Sunday, I sat at the back by the font, next to the young mums with their pushchairs. Felicity sat in Arthur's place in a big blue hat.

During the prayers, I looked at the back of her hat and thought about Arthur, on a ladder, in 1979, hanging those oak doors on hinges he'd made himself.