Written for readers who have finished Book 1.
Sylvia Sutton was Arthur's wife, and she died eighteen months before the story opens. For forty years she sat at the aisle end of the same pew, three rows back on the south side, so she could slip out to the flowers, the urn or a crying child without climbing over anybody, and the wood at that end is worn pale by her hand. She ran the church food bank. She took her tea without milk. Of the two of them, she was the one who said the words of the service as if something were at stake in them. Arthur still sleeps on his own edge of the bed. Her coat still hangs on the second peg, and he has not been able to open her wardrobe.