Here’s a picture of Chimdinma. That opal rosary of hers was basically priceless. She kept it pinned to the inside of her bra, over her heart, at all times when she wasn’t using it. Partly for divine protection, partly out of the convenience of never being without the means to say a quick decade of the beads when the spirit moved her, which was often. Although, as Chimdinma liked to point out, you can say the rosary with any objects at hand if you find yourself in need of a prayer but without your beads. For example, you can say the rosary with pebbles or seed beans. One day, Emmanuel asked her if you could say the rosary with cigarette sticks or beer bottle corks. The answer was yes, if you’re pure at heart.

Through her prayers Chimdinma gained partial indulgences, did not hope to gain a plenary indulgence, being never free from attachment to sin despite frequent confessions. Her biggest and perpetual sin was that she was living with and even pregnant for a man who had not married her in anyway.

Four years before Juwon came to live with her father, after her mother’s accident, Chimdinma started coming to visit Emmanuel in his house, and one day she came visiting and never left again.

That morning…

Her hair smelled like the raw edge of rainy season, her skin was the silk of a thousand spinning wheels, her breath so soft and fragrant, milk and honey beneath her tongue…

…Then he shocked himself. He let her go and drew back abruptly so she will not notice what had happened to him. Sick. He must be sick, he thought. He left the room and bolted through the door, out to the back of the house where he calmed down enough to vomit.

Chimdinma got her balance in the doorway where she stumbled; Emmanuel knocked her aside as he ran out. She came when she heard Juwon’s screeching scream. She stopped in the doorway and watched. She watched a while longer then she went to meet Juwon. One of Juwon’s teeth went loose. She was young, it would mend. There was a silly amount of blood on the carpet, looked worse than it was. She took her by the hand to the bathroom and washed her at the tap. She put her to bed and brought her soft food.

Juwon knew that her father had hit her unintentionally, but she knew better than to expect an apology from him. As for Emmanuel, he had just hit his daughter by mistake and got terribly upset. In the ensuing panic there was a physical accident. Meaningless. Hanged men get hard-ons, for heaven’s sake.

Emmanuel suddenly began to desire Chimdinma at night again, he just came alive. She was his after all. Her dark body and soft mind allowed him to enjoy her in an uncomplicated way. He didn’t look for her for conversations or mental stimulation; he never demanded more than she could give. But remembering what she saw that evening standing by the doorway, she knew it was a demon that had suddenly come alive, and that she had to pray a lot more.

One novena gave way to another, she logged kilometres along the Stations of the Cross, meditated upon the Mysteries – Joyful, Sorrowful, Glorious and Light – of the rosary. She knelt at Our Lady’s feet and prayed that Emmanuel be kept free from his demon for as long as possible. She prayed to the demon and lit another candle for it.

Chimdinma tried to conceive in sorrow, telling herself that it was only to prevent a greater sin on Emmanuel’s part that she acted the harlot with him, enticing him even when she was already pregnant. But she started to get fat. The bigger she got, the harder she prayed, for Emmanuel had once again ceased to come near her, and Juwon grew lovelier and more careless every day. Chimdinma would watch him stare extensively at Juwon as she walked around the house in her bum shorts and shirts with no bra underneath.

Swamped in flesh, Chimdinma could not get a clear deep breath. The baby was sapping the life out of her – no more spot-checks on Emmanuel and Juwon, not at this rate. She was always murmuring then, her lips constantly moving, it got worse whenever she made her glacial way through town to church.

She would get home and find the demon grinning at her again from the mouth of the furnace. Night and day she secreted and spun a gauzy shroud of prayer in which she swaddled Juwon. She saw her body cocooned, suspended, brown eyes open. But no one can spin forever, and cocoons must yield, whether to release a butterfly or a meal.

In the cool dark of Our Lady of Fatima Church, where Chimdinma worshipped, she looked up into the serene alabaster face of Our Lady and asked her to slow the demon down. She recited the Memorare: “Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that anyone who fled to your protection, implored your help or sought your intercession was left unaided. Inspired with this confidence, I fly unto you, O Virgin of virgins, my Mother; to you I come, before you I stand, sinful and sorrowful; O Mother of the Word Incarnate, despise not my petitions, but in your mercy hear and answer me. Amen.”

“Our Lady will think of something. Merciful are her ways,” concluded Chimdinma.