Free When We Were Saints by Han Nolan Page B

would be like not to see his favorite shows anymore, especially the old reruns of the Laurel and Hardy shows and
Star Trek.
    Archie looked at all the drawings he had taped up on the walls of his bedroom. While his grandfather had been alive, Archie had kept his drawings hidden in his closet because his grandfather had once torn up a whole morning's worth of work after he discovered Archie had been in his room drawing instead of out baling hay with Clyde and the other workers. Archie had tried to explain that he had lost track of the time, but that was no excuse. His grandfather grabbed the papers in his fist and shredded them and left them on the floor of Archie's bedroom for him to pick up. Because his grandfather was gone, Archie felt it was at last safe to take his drawings out of hiding and spread them all over the room by taping them to the walls. How could he give up the pleasure and comfort his drawings gave him, especially since he had the freedom to draw and display whatever he liked?
    Archie sat at his computer and stared at the screen. He knew that if he and Armory were still writing back and forth, he wouldn't be able to give up the computer even for a day, but now he wondered. Armory hadn't written him at all to apologize or explain what had happened on the phone when Archie had called. Archie wrote him once to see if he could find out, but Armory had never answered him and so he gave up. He realized the friendship was over.
    He wondered what Armory would think if he told him about Clare. How would he describe her? Armory wouldn't believe him if he told the truth. He'd tell Archie that Clare was crazy, that the whole saint scheme was totally insane. When Archie thought about trying to explain everything to his old friend, it did sound crazy, even to him, but when he thought of Clare's visit and the way he had felt when he was with her—special and accepted, loved, even, just the way he was; skinny, lost Archibald Lee Caswell—her vision made perfect sense. Didn't she say he had been called? Didn't she say he was rare? Why then was he hesitating? He wanted to do it, didn't he?
    Archie couldn't get the memory out of his head of that day up on the mountain when he'd been down on his knees before the pines. He couldn't get rid of the memory of that feeling he'd had up there, and he wanted to experience it again—experience God. He wanted to see Clare again, too, but what if she was wrong? What if he wasn't "rare"? What if he hadn't been called, and it was just his grandfather's way of getting to him one last time? What if he tried to do the things Clare had told him to do and he failed? He hated the thought of disappointing her—and God. He wanted it to be as easy as the first time, but no matter how many times he biked up the mountain and sat on the boulder eating a lemon, that wonderful, holy experience never happened again.
    The only thing easy for Archie was giving up meat. That was one rule he could follow. His stomach wouldn't let him eat it. He told his grandmother not to cook him any more meat or poultry or fish.
    She looked horrified. "What will you eat then? You're already skin and bones. You need your protein; you're a growing boy."
    "I'll eat grains and beans and vegetables," he said.
    His grandmother set her hands on her hips. "Well now, why don't you just go on out there with the cows to do your grazing and I won't have to cook at all."
    Emma Vaughn had changed. She had made a doctor's appointment, and although she had to wait until her doctor got back from his vacation, just making the appointment had taken a load of worry off her mind. She had also started cleaning out the greenhouse, and she whistled in the mornings when she cooked breakfast and sang in the bathtub in the evenings. The greatest change, though, was that she spoke her mind and in no uncertain terms, and even though that meant she got after Archie every so often, he was pleased with the change and grateful to Clare for the way she