Now, as Ellis stood between Lucas and Naomi on a windless autumnal afternoon in the churchyard of St Saviour’s and watched Rose’s coffin being lowered into the ground, he hoped that she would have approved of the service, that it had been suitably dignified.

Rose had specified that she wanted a burial, not a cremation, but she had not made any stipulations as to where it should be. With Lucas’s agreement, Ellis had opted for the church here in Tilsham. Maybe subconsciously he saw the church as cementing his future – this was where he intended to spend the rest of his days, with Naomi.

The Reverend Veronica Carlyle hadn’t known Rose, but she had taken the information with which Ellis had provided her and made a decent job of celebrating his mother’s well-lived life. Amongst those who had come today to pay their respects had been care workers from West View and most heart-warmingly of all, a fair number of the pupils Rose had taught, many of whom had travelled a long way to be here and were middle-aged and pensioner-age. Much like himself, he thought with a wry smile.

Where did the years go? One minute he was a child, then he was a grown man and married to Diana and with a young stepson, then he was a widower mourning the death of his wife, and now … now he had been given another chance. Another bite of the cherry. And he was determined to make the most of it, because not everyone was that lucky in life.

The light pressure of a hand on his arm broke into his thoughts. It was Naomi indicating that the burial service was over, and people were looking at him expectantly, as though for permission to move on to the next part of the proceedings. The final act before the curtain came down.

When he’d proposed that the mourners should gather for a drink at the pub in the harbour, Naomi had come up with a suggestion of her own. She’d said that she had nothing against the pub, but she felt Anchor House would be nicer. ‘I’d like to do this small thing for Rose,’ she’d said, ‘it would be my gift to her.’

Once it was known in the village that his mother’s funeral was to take place at St Saviour’s and the wake would be held at Anchor House, Jennifer Kingsbury and a couple of other stalwarts of the village WI had offered Naomi their assistance. Not long after breakfast that morning, trays of sandwiches, sausage rolls, mini quiches and cakes were dropped off, then Martha and Tom arrived with Willow and Rick shortly afterwards. It was good of them to come, despite never having met his mother. He took it as a good sign, another stepping-stone towards accepting him into their family.

Ellis was touched that people who hadn’t known him for all that long had rushed to help; it made him feel even more a part of the community, and more importantly, a part of Naomi’s circle of neighbourhood friends. He was, after all, taking Colin’s place at Anchor House and there had to be some in Tilsham who would never truly accept him. Such as those at the sailing club where Colin spent so much of his time, and with whom Ellis had no real contact.