The Prodigal Son by Anna Belfrage

weak of faith; we both know it. It would’ve been better had you wed someone like your sister, a woman who understands the sacrifices which our faith requires at times.”
    Matthew shook his head. “That’s not fair, and…”
    “You mustn’t,” Sandy interrupted. “How can you in conscience do something like that?”
    “Something like what?” Alex asked, appearing at the door.
    “It is between Matthew and me, aye?” Sandy stood. “I’ll be going, daylight is fading fast and I don’t want to find myself trapped halfway across the fell.”
    “No,” Alex said, “that might be a bit uncomfortable.”
    “I’ll walk with you,” Matthew offered. He wanted to delay the inevitable confrontation with Alex, feeling her eyes burn into his back as he pulled his cloak around him and followed Sandy out into the November dusk.

    “You don’t like him much, do you?” Joan’s voice made Alex start.
    “That’s not it, in many ways I find him an admirable man, but he’s very black and white, and that leads to a difficult life.”
    “He’s a good man.”
    Alex had no doubts about that, and at times he was even quite funny, painting an engaging picture of a God very much involved in day-to-day life.
    “He always makes me feel as if I’m failing in some fundamental aspect, that somehow I’m not quite the wife Matthew deserves.”
    Joan sat down in the single kitchen chair and undid her shift to lay Lucy at her breast.
    “He thinks you lack in piety and he worries that you won’t stand by Matthew on matters of religion.”
    Alex wasn’t quite sure how to answer that. Sandy was totally right; Alex retained a sceptical view of religion as such, and no way was she about to let anyone in her family – and that included her stubborn husband – die for their faith.
    “It’s a question of perspective; in Sandy Peden’s book the hereafter is the most important and we must live our lives so as not to imperil the immortal soul, no matter what it might cost us or those we love.”
    Joan nodded in agreement.
    “But you see, I don’t think God agrees with him, in fact I believe it pisses him off no end if we squander the gift of life by being excessively rigid. If he didn’t want us to enjoy life he wouldn’t have given us eyes to see with and fingers to touch with and ears to hear all the sounds of the world with…” Alex broke off, somewhat flustered by the astounded look in Joan’s eyes. “I believe we spit in God’s face if we throw our lives away, and I don’t think he likes that very much.”
    Joan shifted breasts and pursed her mouth into a funnel. “You have much more in common with Sandy Peden than you think,” Joan said. “He wants to live, aye? Live and praise the Lord every day – but in accordance with his beliefs, not the Church of England’s.”
    That sort of shut Alex up.

    “What time will you be setting off?” Alex asked once Matthew got back.
    “Hmm?” He dipped his bread in the soup, smiling across the table at his daughter.
    “For Cumnock.” Alex said with a slight edge to her voice.
    “Ah.” Matthew went back to his soup.
    Rachel slipped from her stool to come and sit in his lap, and he blew her in the ear, making her squeal. Ears that were so like her mother’s, tight and somewhat pointed and with a tendency to go pink when she was upset. Alex’ ears were presently very pink and Matthew kissed his daughter before setting her back on her feet.
    “Go, I must speak to your mother alone.” He waited until all of them were gone, even Joan and Lucy, before turning to meet Alex’ eyes. “I don’t think I’ll be riding to Cumnock, it will have slipped my mind. Just as it will slip my mind next time they ask as well.”
    “You told me you would.”
    Matthew shook his head. “Nay I didn’t. I said swearing it would be perjury and make me a lesser man. I just can’t.” The hurt look in her eyes made him cringe, but he had never promised, not as such.
    He expected her to