Free No Safeguards by H. Nigel Thomas

— that man snored liked a hungry boar and slept like a corpse — and wrote my journal. I married Benjamin soon after Kirton died, and all the reasons I had for not getting too close to him at eighteen came true after I married him.
    What would my life have been if instead of marrying Kirton, I’d taken those classes? Mama died 18 months after I married him. I would have been able to go to England then.
    AUGUST 23, 1987
    It is comforting to know Anna held on to scraps of my religious beliefs.
    â€œYou know, Mama, what you told me about God when I was little, I never forgot. You know Caleb is taking this course to become a fully qualified minister. Right?”
    I nodded, afraid of what I’d say if I opened my mouth.
    â€œAfter I married Caleb, they told him that seeing that I would be part of his ministry, I should follow the course too. But I wouldn’t have to take the exam.”
    â€œOh! An exam. A regular university degree. In theology?”
    â€œNo, Mama. Three men from the church headquarters in the States will come and examine Caleb, and if they’re satisfied with his answers, he will move from pastor-in-training to probationary pastor.”
    â€œAnd get a stipend, I hope. Seems to me they’ll have a good reason to fail him.”
    â€œThe reason he’s still on the course is he comes home tired every day. Part of the course is how to win converts from other religions, and not to let them win you over to theirs. True Believer. He’s this character that’s supposed to be filled with the Holy Spirit. He argues with Atheist, Agnostic, Buddhist, and Unitarian. When they tell True Believer that humans wrote the Bible, True Believer is supposed to quote the part in the Bible that says God inspired men to write it.
    â€œAnd True Believer tells Buddhist that unless he gives up his beliefs in reincarnation and wash himself in Christ’s blood he will go to hell; and Buddhist answers: ‘I have to go to hell; each person has to, several times even, and stay there until he is ready to move on to a higher state.’ But True Believer tells him, he doesn’t have to, that it’s as easy as accepting Christ. Unitarian asks True Believer if he would drown his disobedient children or stone them to death. And True Believer says, yes, if the Holy Ghost orders him to, just like God ordered Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. And Unitarian tells him: ‘What if it’s not the Holy Ghost; what if it’s madness?’ True Believer answers that madness is the result of possession by evil spirits and evil spirits can’t live in bodies that Christ’s blood has purified. And True Believer then tells him the story of Job.”
    â€œWhy you all don’t just use his initials? TB suits him just fine, the incurable kind.”
    â€œMama, so that’s how I came to see that what you told me when I was ten made some sense; but it was a long time before I could challenge Caleb. You see, he would have had to leave me, or leave the church if he wanted to remain with me. They are very strict about that. Believers can’t be married to unbelievers.”
    Cur-like obedience to foolish doctrines. I’m not sure her father was much different.

7
    A NNA’S RATTLING BREATH breaks into my recall. I stand, touch her forehead. It’s cold and damp. I stare at her chest — heaving, rattling, battling, as it struggles to expel air and acetone. I snort and realize that I too was holding my breath until she expelled hers.
    I sit, chew my thumbnail, and my mind turns again to my Vincentian past. For the nine years I lived with Grama I felt that she shouldn’t be caring for me, that my place was with Anna, that she needed me. Most nights I fell asleep thinking about her, wondering if she was happy, wondering if we would ever be reunited, wondering if she was warm, especially when the BBC news gave the temperatures for Montreal or said that there was a blizzard.