When We Were Saints

by Han Nolan

  "Grandmama, I'm just fine. I'm worried about you, that's all," Archie said, and he was. He spent many of his hours in prayer with her in his heart. He patted her hand. "I love you, Grandmama," he said.

  Emma Vaughn blushed and gave a little nod. Then she pulled the blanket back up and shifted on the bed again. "If you would just go to Nattie Lynn's and let them look after you. That's all I ask. Couldn't you do that for me? My friends have gone up to the house several times to leave you dinner and bring you groceries, and they come back and find you haven't touched any of it."

  "Grandmama, please."

  "They say you've been spending most of your time with Clare."

  Archie nodded. "Yes, ma'am."

  "She's a sweet girl. She's come by to see me a few times here in the hospital, you know."

  Archie didn't know, but he was pleased because he could see it pleased his grandmother.

  She nodded at him. "It's all right, you two spending time together just as long as you do it with Nattie Lynn's supervision. How about that? You move into town and you can see her more often."

  Every time Archie came to visit, they went back and forth over the same argument. Then his grandmother got pneumonia. The changes the illness made in her shocked Archie. The nurses had put all kinds of IV fluids into her veins, and they seemed to need to draw blood from her every few hours, so her arms and hands were bruised all over and she had oxygen tubes in her nose that ran to a tank by her bed, and there was a heart and blood-pressure monitor hovering nearby as well, beeping and making all kinds of other noises. Archie was sure it was the stress of seeing him and arguing with him all the time that did that to her and he decided it was best he didn't visit her anymore. He felt it would be better if he prayed for her instead; so he stayed on his mountain and did not go to the hospital.

  Clare came when she could in the afternoons after school, and together she and Archie prayed on the mountaintop, sitting in the shade of the pine trees. Archie had prayed so much his voice was hoarse, and Clare told him not to worry, that soon he would not have to pray out loud at all. "The prayer will be in your heart all the time, and no matter what you're doing and what you're saying, your heart will be praying. You will be talking to God always."

  "Is that how it is with you?" he asked. "Is it always in your heart?"

  Clare smiled and bowed her head and whispered, "Yes, Archibald."

  Archie looked at her sitting beneath the pine trees, at the top of her head, the curve of her long back, her delicatelooking hand smoothing out the clump of pine needles by her side, and he wondered where on the road to sainthood she was. Was she farther along than he? Sometimes he thought so, because of the way she knew things, as if she had been at this saint business for years, but then she talked as if they were doing everything together—each wearing one set of clothes all the time, giving up possessions, fasting, and both praying together for the same length of time.

  Archie asked Clare about that, and she looked up at him with such sadness in her eyes, he couldn't bear to look at her. He lowered his head.

  "Where am I on the path?" Clare replied. "You want to know? Too far to ever turn back. Too far for my mother to comprehend. That's why I moved here to live with my father: He's like me, so he doesn't ask too many questions. It's best, Archibald, not to ask too many questions."

  Archie didn't know what to make of Clare. He did have questions. Where then on the path was she? How far was "too far"? Why, if she was so far along, did she bother with him? But before he could speak and ask her any of those things, Clare said, "I think you're ready to expand the prayer now. You can pray to these words, Be still."

  "'Expand'?" Archie asked. "Don't you mean shrink?"

  Clare shook her head. "Every time we remove words, we open the prayer up wider. Don't you see that? To pray Be still is to be present to all the possibilities God has to offer you. To add words adds meaning, until the meaning becomes much more narrow and so does the prayer. You'll say Be still eight hours a day until you feel ready to just stay silent and listen, and after that you will be praying all the time and you will need no words."

  Archie couldn't wait until he was praying as she had said, with his heart. He decided that maybe he still needed Clare's guidance after all, and he looked forward to the next stages she had in store for him.

  Then one day Clare arrived freshly scrubbed, wearing new clothes and carrying some CDs in a backpack, and Archie objected. "No, this isn't right. This can't be the next stage. There can be nothing standing between God and us." He pointed at her. "Why do you look like that? And what's with the CDs? Music is a distraction."

  Clare said, "My mother's in town checking up on me, so I have to go underground for a while."

  "'Underground'?" Archie asked.

  "I have to wear nice clothes and eat big meals or she'll take me back home with hen" She held up her backpack. "And even the saints chanted, you know. Some even wrote music for God. The right music can become another path to the Lord. Don't you think, Archibald, that we should explore every pathway?"

  "'Explore every pathway'?" This was not part of what Archie "knew," and he was reluctant to give in to her but at last he did. He went down into his basement and dug out his CD player and they carried it up the mountain with them. Clare put on the last movement of Suite no. 2 of Respighi's Ancient Airs and Dances. Archie thought they would sit and meditate to it, but Clare put the music on and stood up and danced, raising her arms above her head, her palms open to the sky as though she were calling God down to her. The music was light and joyous, and Clare, keeping her arms high, her face to the sun, spun and leaped about the mountaintop and called to Archie to join her. "It is a way of praising God; come on."

  Archie wanted to keep watching her. He was fascinated and awed by the graceful way she moved. Her hair shone in the sunlight; her eyes, her face, her body, everything on her glistened. Archie knew it was the light of God within her and he wanted that same light for himself. He wondered when the light would begin to shine in him that way, and watching her dance, he felt jealous. The feeling surprised him. He had thought he was above that kind of emotion by then. No wonder he didn't have the light. He shook his head as though he were shaking out the thought and jumped up to join her for the grand finale.

  They held hands and spun with their faces to the sky, and the music resounded with its final bursts of exuberance. They spun until they fell laughing onto the ground. Archie looked at Clare's beaming face and wanted to kiss her and touch her and hold her. Then, ashamed of his thoughts, he stopped laughing. He turned away from her and retreated to the trees. He dropped down on his knees and fell forward on his face. He wanted to eat the dirt, punch his fists into a rock, or pound his body with his fists. How, he wondered, could his mind turn on him that way after so much prayer and devotion to God? How could it happen—first jealousy and then lust, in a matter of minutes? How? How could he feel a desire for anything but God?

  Clare came up behind him and spoke to him. "Are you all right?"

  Archie lifted his head but didn't look at her. "No more music," he said. "No more dancing. I think you should go now."

  "I don't understand."

  "Come back tomorrow," he said. "I'll be okay by tomorrow."

  Clare knelt down beside him, and he lowered his face back to the ground.

  "Maybe we're going too fast with all this, Archibald. Maybe you should back up a little; maybe pray only three hours a day for a while and eat more."

  Archie rose up and glared at her. "Eat more! Pray less! I need to pray more, much more. I'm no saint! I'm a sinner Clare. A sinnen" He turned his head and looked across the mountain. The grass was getting longer and greener A breeze ran through it and the blades slanted away from Archie. "Remember when you asked me if I thought we could be like Jesus and be sinless? Remember you asked if people had that capability?"

  "Sure, I remember."

  "Well, I want to find out. I want to find out if I can be pure in my thoughts and my words and my a
ctions. I want to see if it's possible to really be like Jesus. Otherwise..." Archie looked at Clare. "Otherwise, there's no hope at all. I mean, what's the point of trying to be good if it's not humanly possible—if in the end we're always going to sin?"

  Clare didn't answer him right away. She picked up a pine needle and sniffed it, then twirled it in her hand. She laughed and looked up at the sun, and a tear ran down her face.

  "Clare?" Archie said.

  Clare knelt down beside Archie and took his hand. "We are soul mates. I have waited so long for you, Francis."

  Archie laughed. "I'm not Francis yet."

  Clare let go of his hand and said, "Someday soon, Francis, we will go on our pilgrimage. I know now that someday you will be ready."

  Archie's face brightened. "A pilgrimage? Like a trip? When? Where would we go? Would we walk? What kind of pilgrimage?"

  Clare brushed her hair back off her face. "There is a place," she said. "I will take, you there, but not yet, not now. You have to be ready for it."

  Archie rose up on his knees, barely listening to her words. A pilgrimage was the answer to his prayers. He knew that many people went on pilgrimages to pray for healing and were healed. He would go and pray for his grandmother. "Yes!" he said. "This is brilliant! This is a brilliant idea!"

  Clare laughed, and Archie grabbed her hands and pulled her up with him and spun her around. "Clare," he shouted, "you are perfection!"

  Chapter 14

  WHEN ARCHIE HAD NOT been to see his grandmother in three days, Nattie Lynn called him and left a message that she wanted to see him to discuss a very serious matter Archie knew what the serious matter was and he didn't want to go and face Miss Nattie Lynn, but out of respect for her wishes, he went anyway. His hours spent up on the mountain every day had changed him. He felt a love for all things, and all people. He loved Miss Nattie Lynn, he realized, and he would go and talk to her and show her his love. He had convinced Clare that riding their bikes for transportation should be acceptable, at least until school let out, so Archie climbed on his bike and rode to Nattie Lynn's house.

  As he rode he noticed patches of the sun's light striking the mountains in the distance, and closer the tiny wildflowers springing up on the sides of the road. He noticed all the colors of green in the leaves of the trees, and all the shades of brown in their trunks. He felt such love for the flowers and the trees and mountains and the sun that shone down upon them on the golden day that he had to stop several times so that he could take it all in. The love he felt pouring from him was overwhelming to him. His chest expanded with emotion; his eyes filled with tears. The world was so beautiful, he didn't know what to do.

  A car passed behind him and Archie felt something hit his back. A teen's voice yelled from the car "Get out of the road, clown!" and sped past. Archie turned around and found the Coke can that had been thrown at him. He picked it up and examined the red-and-white design on the silver can. Even the can, with its crushed center looked beautiful to him. He climbed back on his bike and continued on to Nattie Lynn's with the can in his hand. When he arrived at the house and Miss Nattie Lynn answered the door he handed her the can and said, "I brought this for you."

  Nattie Lynn took the can with a frown. "Are you wanting me to throw this away for you?" she asked.

  Archie smiled and said, "It's yours. You can do whatever you want with it."

  Nattie Lynn, still frowning and looking Archie up and down, opened the door wider and told him to come in. "You need a bath, young man," she said, leading him into her living room and setting the Coke can on a table in the hallway.

  The house was dark, with oak woodwork everywhere, and it felt to Archie like a very masculine house, large and square, with heavy furnishings and dark, thick curtains drawn in all the windows. The only things feminine in the living room were Miss Nattie Lynn and the collection of antique dolls she had placed on the mantelpiece.

  Nattie Lynn told Archie to have a seat, and he chose an oversized chair with lion paws carved in wood for armrests. She sat across from him, her plump body filling out the chair and picked up her knitting from the backpack that sat on the floor by her feet.

  "I just wanted to tell you how much I appreciate you coming out to check on me every now and then," Archie said, beginning the conversation.

  "Well, that's exactly what I wanted to talk to you about. We never actually see you anymore, do we?" Nattie Lynn replied, smiling and tilting her head as though she had said, "Won't you please have some candy?" "We see that note you tacked up on your door telling us you're up on the mountain, but it's the same old note every time. For all we know you've fallen and broken your leg, like you did that time with the Armory Mitchell boy. We leave you food and we come back a few days later and it's still there, and I can see for myself that you aren't eating much. Why, you're as thin as a prisoner;"

  "I don't eat meat anymore, Miss Nattie Lynn," Archie said. "But as you can see, I'm alive and well, so next time you visit my grandmama, please tell her this."

  Nattie Lynn worked quickly with her needles, not even bothering to look at her work. Instead she watched Archie. "What do you propose we do, Mr. Archibald? Do you want us to he? Because surely, if I told her you were well, I would be lying."

  "No, ma'am, I don't." Archie paused and considered what he should say. "What if I make out a new note for you each day to let you know where I am? And if you want to bring me food, which I do appreciate, then if you would bring me vegetables and bread, things like that, I will most gladly eat it. That way you'll know I'm all right and you can give my grandmama a good report. You see, until she's well, I don't think I should visit because my presence upsets her."

  Nattie Lynn stopped knitting. "Sounds like you've got it all figured out now, don't you?"

  "Yes, ma'am," Archie said, believing he was behaving like Clare, the way he spoke to her and shone his loving eyes on her.

  But Nattie Lynn leaned forward in her seat and with a glaring expression said, "Well, I don't like it. I don't like it one bit. Give your grandmama 'a good report'? Based on what? A few scraps of food left in the garbage, a fresh note tacked on the door? You must think I'm some kind of fool, but I can assure you, I'm not."

  Archie held up his hand. "Wait a minute. It's not what you think. I'm not up to anything." As he looked at her Archie tried to hold on to the loving feelings he had felt for all man- and womankind up on the mountain. He smiled a syrupy smile.

  Nattie Lynn scowled at him. "Archibald, you must think I just fell off the turnip truck this morning. Of course you're up to something. And telling me that it would be better if you didn't see your grandmama! What kind of fool notion is that? If you want her to stop worrying, you'll put on some clean clothes, pack your bags, and get yourself on down here. Then you will go visit your grandmama every single day, like a good and decent grandson should."

  Archie tried another tack. "Miss Nattie Lynn, you remember what my granddaddy said before he died?"

  "Of course I do; I was right there with him. Heard it with my own ears."

  "Well, I believe he meant it. It was a prophecy. And now, I must be about my Father's business."

  Nattie Lynn drew in a deep breath, and with her lips pinched tight and her finger pointing at Archie she said, "Don't you be quoting Jesus at me, young man. 'About my Father's business,' indeed! What, may I ask, might that 'business' be?"

  "Prayer mostly."

  Nattie Lynn raised her hands, then thrust her knitting down on her lap. "'Prayer'? Good gracious, boy, you can do that anytime, anywhere. You can certainly do that in this house if you've a mind to it."

  Archie squirmed back into his seat and looked at the dolls staring at him from the mantelpiece above Nattie Lynn's head. "Truth is, I'm planning on going on a pilgrimage."

  "A pilgrimage? To Jerusalem? Lord have mercy, what put that idea in your head?"

  "Not Jerusalem, someplace closer Clare says going on a pilgrimage is a way of deepening and proving our faith. She says it can be a life-cha
nging experience."

  "You want 'a life-changing experience'? If your grandmama doesn't make it, you'll have yourself a life-changing experience, all right!"

  Archie felt as if the room had just tilted. He grabbed the armrests and blinked several times and told himself that his grandmama would be just fine. Just fine! He stood up. He didn't want to listen to anything more. "Excuse me, Miss Nattie Lynn, but I think I had better be going now."

  Nattie Lynn stood up, too, leaving her knitting on the seat of her chair. "You leaving on that pilgrimage right this minute, are you?"

  "No, ma'am," Archie said, backing out into the hallway and trying to remain calm.

  Nattie Lynn followed him. "And do you plan to just leave your grandmama in the hospital, in her serious condition, while you're on that pilgrimage of yours?"

  Archie stopped. He clenched his fists. "The pilgrimage will be for her too. People have been healed on pilgrimages. I will be praying for her all the time."

  "Archibald Caswell, I hate to say it, but I'm ashamed of you. Your grandmama needs you there at the hospital, and she needs to know you're all right."

  "Miss Nattie Lynn, don't you believe in the power of prayer?"

  "Indeed I do, but nothing shows off the power of prayer better than the power of love, and showing that love by being there when your grandmama needs you."

  Archie turned and walked toward the front door. He didn't want to argue with her anymore. Her words were pulling him away from God. As much as he tried to feel only love for Nattie Lynn, he had felt an ugliness creeping up inside him, especially when she had tried threatening him by using his grandmother's illness. He wanted to get home and climb his mountain, where he knew God waited for him. There his mind and heart could rest in God, but in town, with Nattie Lynn and his grandmother he felt angry and upset and unholy. The visit had made him realize that he should not be around people who did not understand his mission. He decided he would not ride into town again. He would not ride his bike anywhere ever again. If he needed to get somewhere, he would walk. That was the way a true pilgrim of God would get around.