When We Were Saints

by Han Nolan

  Archie tried to explain his troubles with eating meat without getting his grandmother too riled up. " Grandmama," he said, "I would eat meat if I could, but my stomach just has a violent reaction to it these days. I don't know why. But you don't have to do anything extra. I'll get the groceries and I'll cook my own food, too."

  Emma Vaughn shook her finger at Archie and said, "I've been cooking for seventy-nine of my eighty-four years, and I'll be cooking till I die, Archibald Lee Caswell—and don't you forget it. You'll get what you get, and if it's not good enough ... well, then I don't know what."

  Archie got what he got, but he wouldn't eat the meat. He ate the vegetables and the rice, but if his grandmother made a meal with everything cooked together in one pot, like a stew or a casserole, he didn't eat at all.

  Archie thought the stews were tricks his grandmother tried to get him to eat meat. He knew she couldn't believe he'd go without eating just because something had meat in it, but he did.

  "You're a stubborn boy," she said to him one night when he once again refused her stew and got up from the table.

  "No, Grandmama, you're a stubborn woman," Archie replied, "and I still can't eat the meat. I'm sorry."

  Archie made up for the missed meals by going down to the kitchen after his grandmother had cleaned up and making a couple of peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches to eat in his room. He knew his grandmother had to know about it, since the peanut butter and jelly jars were emptying out more quickly, but she never said anything and neither did he.

  Archie didn't call Clare that first week after they had gotten together or the week after that, either and she didn't call him to see why he hadn't called. He felt guilty about it. He remembered Clare's face, her radiance, that light in her eyes, and he felt ashamed, but he had nothing to report, so he didn't call. However as the days passed, something inside Archie began to shift, and it shifted so slowly that he didn't even notice. It began with his schoolwork. He always did his work listening to music, but one day the music seemed too loud and he found it hard to concentrate, so he turned it down. A little while later the music sounded too loud again, and he turned it down some more. That kept happening until, by the end of the afternoon, he had turned his music off altogether: From that day forward he didn't listen to music while he studied.

  A few days later he decided that his bedroom felt too crowded. All the time that he spent outside on top of the mountain made him more aware of the confinement he felt when he was in his room with the door closed. The old model cars he had collected over the years distracted him, and besides, he told himself, he was too old for model cars. He put them in a box and took them down to the basement. Archie had cleaned out every trace of the still while his grandfather had been in the hospital, but the memories of that afternoon with Armory and his grandfather were still vivid in his mind, and he set the box down and hurried back up the steps as fast as he could. His grandmother was standing with a puzzled expression at the top of the stairs.

  Archie, believing she wanted to know what he was doing, told her he was packing up some things for the move, and she looked at him with her hands caked in dirt and her eyes shining and said, "Archibald, I'm confused." Then she wandered back out to the greenhouse, not saying why she was confused. Archie guessed it was because she was still making plans for the move with her friends to Miss Nattie Lynn's house, while at the same time she was planning her garden at home.

  Archie returned to his room and looked at all the art and comic books he'd read and the piles of biking magazines. What did he need those around for collecting dust and crowding him to distraction? He wasn't going to read them again. He loaded them into more boxes and carried the boxes down to the basement. But then there were all the empty shelves in his room waiting to be filled up again. He didn't want that, or he'd be right back where he'd started—all squished up with no room to move around. He wanted space. Suddenly he couldn't get enough space. He hauled off the shelves and all of his CDs and his radio/CD player. He took the television out of his room. There was one in the living room he could watch, he reasoned.

  By the end of that third week since he had seen Clare, his room held a bed, a desk and chair his computer a chest of drawers full of clothes, and his art supplies. By then Archie realized that he had begun to do the things Clare had told him he should do, but still he did not call her. He hadn't done those things to get closer to God and become more of a saint. He had done them because the clutter and the noise bothered him. When he went to church with his grandmother even on Easter Sunday, he still tugged at the collar of his dress shirt and fell asleep during the sermon, and he never felt saintly in the least while he was there. In truth, Archie didn't want to go to church anymore. He didn't know what he wanted, but he knew that whatever it was, it wasn't at the church. That was his grandfather's church, not his. He told his grandmother that, expecting an all-out war over his decision, but she surprised him, saying, "You're old enough to make your own choice about that."

  Archie didn't attend any other church after his discussion with his grandmother: His church, he felt, was on the mountain. He spent more and more time up there, lying on his back in the grass, staring up at the sky and the tops of the trees, and occasionally saying the words Clare had given him to say, trying them out: "Be still and know that I am God." He thought about the prayer. That's what Clare had said they should do—think about what the words mean. Every time he thought about it, though, lying on the mountain with his eyes closed and whispering the words— "Be still and know that I am God"—the meaning was slightly different: If I am still, I'll know who God is. If I'm still, I'll know that God is here, with me. If I'm still, I will know that God is everywhere. In the stillness, I'll feel God's presence. In the stillness, I'll feel God's presence in me and around me.

  Archie would think those thoughts for a while, and then his mind would start to wander and before he knew it he'd fall asleep. He liked sleeping on the mountain and waking up to the late-afternoon songs of the birds or the warm sun on his face. One day, though, he awoke and said to himself, "It's time to call Clare."

  He returned to his house. He looked around for his grandmother and then remembered Clyde Olsen had come by earlier to take her on her round of errands. He looked at the clock. It was after four. He knew Clare would be home from school by then, and in the back of his mind, he thought his grandmother should have been home by then, too.

  He found Clare's number in the phone book and called her.

  Mr. Simpson answered and Archie felt relieved. He would tell Clare who was on the phone. She could refuse to come to the phone if she was mad and didn't want to speak to him.

  He heard Mr. Simpson call to her and he heard him say Archie's name. Then there was a pause, and Archie's heart began to beat faster. Clare's voice said, "Hello," and he couldn't speak. He didn't know what to say or how to explain himself.

  "Archibald, are you there? Archibald? How are you doing?"

  "Uh—"

  "Archibald?"

  "I—uh—I'm trying to do all those things we talked about. I wasn't planning on doing them because ... well, I thought maybe it would be really hard and maybe I wouldn't be good at it. I mean, maybe I'd fail—or something. But you know what? It's not so hard. I mean, I'm not doing everything. I'm not saying that prayer thing three thousand times, more like about thirty, but I've cleared out my room some, and I don't listen to music while I study anymore, and I'm hardly ever on the computer ... I don't know; I think I want to get serious about this. I think I want to try it all and see what happens. If you're still willing to do this with me, I mean." Archie stopped talking and waited for Clare to say something. She didn't speak right away, so Archie said, "What do you think?"

  "Of course I'm willing, Archibald. We're soul mates, aren't we? We'll say the prayer together, It's hard keeping count, isn't it? Why don't you just try praying for three hours."

  "Three hours? Wow."

  "You should try it first. Then you'll say Wow. Anyway, we could
get together on weekends and say it together, School will be out soon; then we can get together more often."

  Archie was about to agree with Clare's plans and arrange a meeting time when he heard the call-waiting signal. He said, "Clare, hold on, someone's on the other line."

  It was Clyde Olsen and he sounded shaken.

  "Archibald," he said, "I've been trying to call you for hours. I don't know how it happened, but I'm afraid your grandmama's gone and broke her hip. She's here in the hospital. Can you get yourself down here?"

  Archie said, "I'll be there as soon as I can." He hung up the phone, grabbed his grandfather's keys off the counter and ran out to the truck, forgetting all about Clare waiting on the other line.

  Chapter 11

  CLYDE OLSEN WAS WAITING for Archie when he arrived at the hospital. Archie saw him, thin and haggard-looking, standing at the nurses' station in his overalls with his hat in his hand, looking out for him. Archie waved, and he saw relief spread across Clyde's face. Clyde said something to the nurse, and she came out from behind the counter and the two of them greeted Archie when he arrived at the nurses' station.

  "I'm Mrs. Little," the nurse said to Archie, extending her hand.

  Archie shook it, looking at Clyde, whose expression had changed back to worry.

  "Your grandmother has broken her hip, which given her age is quite serious," the nurse said. She'd begun walking down the hall, so Archie and Clyde followed. "She's still groggy from the anesthesia, so you won't visit for too long, will you?"

  "No, ma'am."

  The nurse pointed. "She's right at the end of the hall, room three-sixty. When you're through, come back to the nurses' station and I'll have you fill in some of the blanks Mr. Olsen left on the insurance forms for your grandmother,"

  "Yes, ma'am," Archie said. He looked at Clyde, who only nodded.

  "How did it happen?" Archie asked him once the nurse had gone.

  Clyde shook his head. "I don't rightly know, Archibald. I had dropped her off at the post office while I went on to get some gas. When I returned she saw me and stepped off the curb, and in one split second I saw her face twist up with pain and her body just crumple beneath her. It was terrible. She was in such pain, and I just couldn't lift her There wasn't any way without her crying out in agony like I was breaking her to pieces. I just couldn't move her. So I called the ambulance." Clyde finished his story as they arrived at Emma Vaughn's room.

  Archie said, "Thanks, Clyde. Thank you for looking after Grandmama."

  Clyde gave a quick nod and shook Archie's hand. "You need anything else, son? Need a lift back home?"

  "No, I'm fine. I got the truck."

  Clyde put his hat on his head and a soil-encrusted hand on Archie's shoulder. "Well then, I'm gonna head on home. I'll drop off your grandmama's groceries on the way, if that's all right. I'll set them on the kitchen table for you."

  Archie watched Clyde walk down the hall a moment, then turned and stepped into his grandmother's room.

  Emma Vaughn lay still in the bed on the other side of the room. Her eyes were closed, and the television was on. A nurse was fussing with an IV bag and watching the TV She pressed a button to turn it off and said, "I think she's sleeping."

  "No, I'm not, either Is that you, Archibald?" His grandmother opened her eyes and, seeing her grandson, reached out her hand.

  Archie stepped forward and took it. "Hey, Grandmama, how you doing?"

  "I'm doing all right for the moment, and I want to take full advantage of this bliss medication they got me on and get some good sleep, because I know when it wears off I'm going to be in a lot of pain, so I'm not going to talk to you long."

  "Yes, ma'am."

  His grandmother lifted her head off the pillow and leaned toward Archie. "You listen to me now, you hear? I want you to go on to Nattie Lynn's house and stay there. She'll take good care of you."

  "Grandmama, you lay yourself on back down." Archie patted her shoulder; and she fell back on the pillow. "Now, I'm fourteen years old. I don't need anybody looking after me. I'll be fine at home. I'm practically an adult. Shoot, I'm driving, aren't I?"

  "Listen, Archibald. I don't know how long I'm going to be in here. I reckon I shouldn't have waited for my doctor to get back from vacation and should have had this leg seen to sooner but no use crying over it now. I'm here and here's where I'll be for a while, but when I get out, we're moving to Nattie Lynn's whether the house is rented out or not. So you might as well move on over there now. You do as I say, you hear me?"

  "But what about your camellias and your big garden idea?" Archie asked.

  "I can grow a flower garden at Nattie Lynn's just as well. It's more important that you've got people looking after you. Now you go on. Go on over there right now."

  "Yes, ma'am," Archie said, but when he left the hospital that evening, he went straight home, put up the groceries Clyde had left, made and ate two peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches washed down with a can of warm Coke, and then went to his room to try three hours of praying without ceasing.

  He closed his eyes and began praying. It was just as hard to do as he'd imagined, because his mind kept wandering. He thought about his grandmother and wondered what he would do if she died. She had always had so much energy and acted much younger than all of her friends that Archie thought of her as living forever, or at least until he was through college. But she looked old in the hospital, with her hair drawn back off her face and so much white surrounding her—white sheets, white blankets, white hospital gown. She looked just like a ghost, pale and weak.

  Archie wondered if his grandmother had made arrangements with someone to take care of him if she died. He thought about Clyde Olsen. He was the youngest friend his grandmother had, but he was fifty and had never married, which his grandmother always thought was peculiar so Archie didn't think she would choose him. All of her lady friends were worse off than she was, as far as Archie could tell, and he hoped that now that his grandmother was in the hospital, the whole four-ladies-and-Archie-living-together plan would be put on hold. But already the phone had rung three separate times that night, and after he answered the first call from Miss Nattie Lynn, who told him that she had expected him for dinner and asked him what he was doing at home, Archie let the answering machine pick up the other two calls.

  Archie thought that if he legally couldn't stay on the farm by himself, then he would want to go live with Armory and his family. They owned a big, fancy townhouse in Georgetown, a neighborhood in Washington. They had plenty of room for Archie and plenty of money. Then Archie remembered he and Armory weren't friends anymore. How could he have forgotten that? He felt tears stinging his eyes and uneasiness in his stomach. How could he live without his grandmother? How could he even think of it? With her in the hospital, he realized how much he really loved her. He knew if anyone was a saint, she was, for putting up with him and his grandfather. Maybe, he thought, his granddaddy had really been pointing at her the day he died.

  Archie didn't want to think about death anymore. He opened his eyes and looked at his watch. He had been ruminating on his situation for thirty minutes, and his prayers had been long forgotten. "Some saint I am," he said. He lay back on his bed and started again. He lasted more than an hour before he fell asleep with his prayer on his lips.

  A few hours later he awoke to find himself outside on the edge of his grandfather's old tobacco fields. He stood fully clothed, except for his shoes, beneath the moon and the stars. He felt their light all around him, soft and misty. He looked up into the sky and felt so overwhelmed by what he saw—the millions of stars, the fat full moon so close he felt he could reach out and wrap his arms around it—that he fell to his knees in tears. Once again his body lost its boundaries and he became the stars and the moon and the whole sky, and the earth beneath him. Tears streamed down his face, but he didn't notice. He felt overcome with love for God and humbled by the strong feeling of God's love for him. Over and over he felt the words I AM beating in his chest, pul
sing through him, pulsing through everything around him. "I AM," he said out loud. Then these thoughts ran through his mind: We are connected to this earth. There is life in all things. There is God in all things. There is God in me. The trees are holy. I am holy. A saint is holy. I am a saint.

  Chapter 12

  IN THE EARLY MORNING Archie sat up in the field, and his surroundings appeared as they always had and his body felt as it usually did, separate, and heavy with weight. But things were different just the same. Inside he had been changed. He knew things he hadn't known before. He knew the Kingdom of God was in him. It was in all people. He had read about the Kingdom of God in the Bible before and had never really understood what the Kingdom was. But the night before he had felt it. Until that night he always had prayed to something "out there" or "up there" in the sky. He had never thought to pray deep inside himself, to the indwelling God. He'd never understood that the "I AM" of God was inside him. When he prayed he always prayed for God to give him something—an A on a test, or a dual-suspension mountain bike for Christmas, or for his grandfather to get well.

  The previous night he'd realized that all the things that happened to him in his life were perfect, and were as they should be. Good or bad, it was all God, and all right. He wanted to hold on to the thought, to all the great feelings he had had the night before. He wanted to hold on to God. But when he returned to the house and took a shower he could feel it all starting to slip away from him, and his worries about his grandmother and his future were moving in to take God's place. He had felt so full, so wonderfully full of God's love for him. Why couldn't he feel that always? Why couldn't that feeling stay strong and close, the way it had been just a few hours before? He had never felt anything so perfect and so good. Was it possible to always feel that way? Clare had said it was. She had said they just had to follow the way of the pilgrim. They had to say that prayer and focus on God. He thought of Clare's face. When she had looked at him up on the mountain and taken his hand, she had loved him. He wanted that. He wanted to see her again and to feel her love for him.