Confessions

They were shaking hands at the door to the church after the service. Jamie’s eyes were on Mary, carrying the baby, as she moved out of earshot and toward the church’s car park. He turned his face back to the Vicar. Vicar Michael was young for a vicar and robust. He was hardly what some would think of as a vicar—certainly not the people of Little Stokes. He’d only been in the position for a couple of years. It would be at least twenty years more before the villagers stopped referring to him as the “new vicar,” and stopped pursing their lips when they said it, making it sound like he was only on temporary assignment and hadn’t unpacked his bags yet. He wasn’t sufficiently pious for them. He was more the rugby player type and could be seen at the pub, bending his elbow with a pipe and smoking, in the company of Thomas Owencraft. And he wasn’t married, despite having been repeatedly invited for dinner at every home in the village and surrounding countryside housing an eligible woman under forty-five.

“I don’t think there’s anything I need help with, Vicar,” Jamie said, aware that his hand was still in the vicar’s and there was a bit of a backup of church leavers in the narthex. “We’re doing well. It’s just hard keeping up with a farm, no matter how small, when you are just starting out learning it all.”