Where the Dust Doesn't Settle

“Faith was meant to ground me. But here, even the ground feels like it’s trying to shift beneath my feet.”

Pacing restlessly by the small campfire, I felt the grit of the sandy earth crunch beneath my shoes, every step a futile attempt to outrun the whirlwind of emotions stirring inside me. The warm morning air, thick and dry, clung to my skin like a second layer, offering no comfort—only irritation, as if the very world around me conspired to rub salt into my wounds.

In my hands, the handkerchief—once pristine, white, delicately embroidered by my mother’s own fingers—had become a crumpled, twisted thing. I clenched and unclenched it over and over, its softened cotton bearing the brunt of my frustration and helplessness. It had been a gift, a token of love and continuity, but now it felt like a relic from another life, one slipping further from reach with each passing hour.

Noah sat a few feet away on an upturned crate, his shoulders slumped, his elbows resting heavily on his knees. He wasn’t speaking, but his silence said everything. The furrow of his brow, the way his jaw tightened and loosened again, the restless tapping of his fingers against his thigh—it all betrayed the weight he was carrying. The same weight that bent my own back, that wrapped itself around my chest and squeezed until I could barely draw breath.

His eyes met mine briefly, and in that glance I saw a reflection of my own anguish: confusion, disappointment, a grief too profound to name. There had always been comfort in our shared faith, in the rituals and rhythms of our belief. The scriptures, the Sunday meetings, the temple covenants—they had been the compass that guided every decision we made, the scaffolding of our marriage and our family.

And now, here we were. In a dust-blown encampment with no chapel, no sacrament, no ward family to lean on. Just empty sky, unfamiliar faces, and a silence that felt devoid of God’s presence.

How had it come to this?

How had our unwavering faith—so steady, so sure—led us to this barren wasteland, so far from the comforts of home and the embrace of our church community?

When Paul approached us, his voice gentle yet laced with an undercurrent of anxiety, I felt a flicker of hope stir within me—a fragile, flickering flame barely strong enough to cast light against the darkness pressing in from all sides. Perhaps, finally, he would offer some clarity, some fragment of truth to anchor us in this storm. Perhaps he could make sense of the madness that had torn us from our home and our purpose, and assure us that our sacrifices had not been meaningless.

“Mum, Dad, can we talk?” he asked, his tone cautious, his words wrapped in the kind of hesitancy that comes from knowing the damage has already been done.

I stopped pacing and turned to face him, the dust clinging to the hem of my skirt, my hands still clenched tightly around my mother’s handkerchief. My eyes, stinging with unshed tears, locked onto his. The betrayal I felt—deep, raw, and laced with something perilously close to fury—surged to the surface.

“Paul, how could Luke do this to us? The New Jerusalem... it was all a lie!” The words escaped my lips like shards of glass, sharp and painful, each one cutting deeper than the last. My voice trembled, not from weakness but from the sheer weight of my broken faith.

Paul exhaled slowly, and in that breath I saw the burden he carried. His shoulders sagged, his posture slumped beneath the invisible load of complicity or guilt—I couldn’t yet tell which. “I know, Mum, and I'm sorry. Luke... he thought he was doing the right thing.”

Doing the right thing. The phrase echoed mockingly in my mind, its hollowness ringing louder than the apology it was meant to carry. A paltry attempt at justification—at softening the blow—when what we needed was truth, clarity, repentance.

How could Luke, my own son, have done this? How could he twist the deepest truths of our faith, take the sacred hope of Zion and use it as bait in some distorted vision of righteousness? Every instinct within me cried out in protest, in agony. This wasn’t just a misstep. This was a desecration.

Beside me, Noah finally lifted his gaze to meet Paul’s. His eyes, usually so steady and strong, were clouded with grief. “We were prepared to leave everything behind, Paul. For our faith, for our family. But this... this is not what we were promised.”

There was a tiredness in his voice I hadn’t heard before, a resignation that struck me to the core. His words, heavy with sorrow, landed like stones in the silence between us, deepening the cracks that had already begun to form in the fragile foundation of my composure.

As Paul sat beside Noah, the bench creaked under their combined weight, the sound breaking the heavy stillness like a whispered accusation. I resumed my restless pacing, the coarse, unfamiliar soil grinding beneath the soles of my shoes. Each step felt wrong—jarring and unnatural—reminding me that this place was not home, would never be home. The barren ground seemed to sneer at my discontent, as if mocking the life I had once known and the faith that had brought me here.

“But we'll never go home again, will we? I can't... I can't accept that.”

The words wrenched themselves from my throat, raw and hoarse, stripped of all pretence. Spoken aloud, they sounded like a death knell—a declaration of something lost forever. My chest tightened with the sheer enormity of it, of what we had left behind. Our house. Our garden. The rhythms of a life built on prayer and routine. All of it, gone.

Paul reached out, gently taking my hand in his. His touch was warm, sincere—an anchor in a tide that threatened to pull me under. “Mum, I know this is hard. It's hard for all of us. But we're together, and that's what matters. We'll build a new life here, a new home.”

A new home. The phrase echoed through my mind, hollow and unconvincing, like a hymn sung by someone who no longer believes the words. I wanted to recoil from it. The idea of calling this arid wilderness a home felt like a betrayal of everything we’d sacrificed, everything we’d endured in pursuit of the celestial promise we’d been given.

My shoulders sagged, the strength draining from me like water from a cracked vessel. I felt the heavy pull of grief, of stubborn disbelief clinging to my bones.

“But we're not all together, are we!?” I snapped, the words slipping out like a whipcrack. The pain of it struck me anew, like a reopened wound. We weren’t whole. We were missing too many pieces, lost in the great, silent distance between what we’d hoped for and what we’d received.

The ache of our fractured family throbbed deep within me. Lisa, Eli and Charles—where were they now? Could they feel our absence? Would we ever see them again?

Noah rose and placed a steadying hand on my shoulder. His touch was gentle, familiar, and yet it couldn’t quiet the storm inside me.

“He's right, Greta. We have each other, and that's more than many can say.”

His voice, though calm, trembled ever so slightly, and I knew he was clinging to the same fragile thread of hope that I was. I wanted to let it hold me, to wrap myself in the warmth of his love and believe it was enough.

But the weight of our new reality pressed down hard. The dry, foreign air seemed to thicken around us. And though I nodded faintly, trying to draw strength from their presence, the loss hung between us—solid, inescapable, and impossible to ignore.

Finally, I settled beside Noah, my body aching from tension, my breaths escaping in long, shuddering sighs. The fire had dulled to embers, its soft glow doing little to warm the gnawing cold inside me.

“I just miss our home, our church, our community.”

The words, once spoken aloud, felt heavier than I’d anticipated, disturbing the fragile surface of my resolve. It wasn’t just a passing sadness. It was grief—raw and unprocessed—for a life that had been ripped from beneath our feet, for the people and places that had anchored me.

Paul's voice, barely more than a whisper, broke through the silence. “I miss them too.”

For a moment, I saw not the strange, distant man Clivilius had made of my son, but the boy who used to sit beside me in church, who knew the hymns by heart and held my hand when the world felt too big.

“But we have a chance to build something new here. Together.”

Together. The word echoed in my mind, strange and comforting all at once. It shimmered faintly, like the first star after dusk—fragile, distant, but visible. I felt Noah’s hand tighten gently on my shoulder, his steady presence grounding me, reminding me that no matter where we were, the bond between us remained unbroken.

“Paul's right. We've always been a strong family. We can get through this, as long as we stick together.”

Noah's voice, calm and full of quiet conviction, sank into my bones like balm. I leaned into him, allowing myself a moment of solace in his embrace, feeling the solid warmth of his chest beneath my cheek. This was home, at least for now—this closeness, this unity.

“I just need time, Noah. Time to adjust.”

The admission slipped out in a low murmur, softer than a prayer. It was small, but it was honest—a first step across the jagged threshold of this new life. The road ahead was daunting, unfamiliar and littered with grief. But perhaps it wasn’t entirely impassable.

Paul slid an arm around me, his gesture tentative but sincere. The weight of it, the simple familial touch, lit a faint warmth deep within my weary heart.

“Take all the time you need, Mum. We're here for you, always.”

Always. The word hung in the air like a benediction, a vow murmured into the shifting winds. It steadied me—briefly. It reminded me that even here, in this parched and foreign land, love could still take root.

But the calm didn’t last.

Even as silence settled over us—a delicate hush shared in understanding—I felt the unease coil again in my belly. It pulsed, restless and insistent. I could not sit still. The questions, the fears, the uncertain future—they clawed at me from the inside.

Before long, I was pacing again, my steps carving anxious paths into the dust. The ground, dry and dusty beneath my feet, seemed to echo the turbulence within, each footfall a reflection of the thoughts that refused to rest.

The silence stretched on, a heavy and oppressive thing, pressing down on my shoulders like a physical weight. The air seemed to thicken with unsaid things, griefs and grievances hanging in the space between us like storm clouds ready to burst.

Then Paul’s voice cut through the stillness, uncertain but insistent, breaking the haze of my spiralling thoughts.

“Dad?”

He shifted slightly on the rickety bench, the wood groaning under the movement, his tone laced with raw vulnerability. It wasn’t just a question—there was yearning in it, a plea for clarity, for something solid to hold onto in this swirling maelstrom of confusion.

“Yes, Paul.”

Noah’s response was measured, calm as ever. But I knew him too well. Beneath the steady cadence of his voice lay something more—an undertow of doubt and sorrow, held tightly in check. His hands were folded in his lap, too still.

“I can’t help it. I just have to know. What made you think that you were coming to the New Jerusalem here? Is Luke really that manipulative?”

Paul’s words tumbled out in a rush, laced with disbelief and the ache of betrayal. The question pierced right to the core, slicing through the haze of speculation and dread that had clouded our judgement from the moment we stepped into this godforsaken place. His eyes—so often bright with wit—were shadowed now, darkened by confusion and something close to desperation.

Noah turned to him, his expression softening, a small, rueful smile playing at the corners of his lips. I saw then the flicker of the man I married—faithful, devout, ever hopeful, even when standing at the edge of uncertainty.

“Paul, there’s something I’ve wanted to tell you about what happened back home, well, before all of this.”

His voice was gentle, but it set my nerves on edge. I tensed. My throat tightened. There was something in the way he said it, something unfinished and unresolved, like a wound not yet scabbed over.

And before he could go on, I heard myself interrupting—sharper than I meant to be, the ache of all those days of silence rising up like a tide. “But we couldn’t find you and you never answered your phone.”

The accusation hung in the air, cutting and unforgiving. My voice, riddled with days of anxiety, cracked at the edges. It wasn’t just about missed calls—it was about abandonment, about fear, about feeling shut out in the darkest hour.

Paul’s shoulders slumped slightly, the weight of it settling onto him. “Well, now you know why,” he said, his tone sombre, each word heavy with a regret that mirrored my own.

In that moment, all of it—their secrecy, our disillusionment, this endless desert—seemed to blur together into something unnameable and vast. I wrapped my arms tightly across my chest, trying to hold myself together as the truth continued to unfold like slow, painful steps into unknown terrain.

Noah took a deep breath, his gaze drifting towards the horizon where the sky met the scorched earth in a shimmer of heat. It was the look he always wore when wrestling with something larger than himself, as if scanning the distance might help him find the words buried deep within.

“Last Sunday,” he began slowly, “your mother and I were invited to a special meeting at the Temple by the Bishop. It was a sacred gathering, with selected members of the Church and one of the Twelve Apostles.”

His voice held a reverence that immediately stilled me. I turned toward him, caught by the gravity of his tone. The memory of that day returned in a rush—the quiet reverence of the Temple, the hush of expectancy in the chapel, the feeling that we were on the brink of something momentous. My heart beat faster just recalling it.

“They told us that the Lord was gathering His elect,” Noah continued, his voice low and sure. “We were preparing to relocate to Salt Lake City soon, to join other Saints and start building the New Jerusalem.”

Paul's frown deepened, his brows drawn together in a mix of concern and disbelief. The lines of confusion etched into his face reflected my own struggle to process what we had believed—what we had surrendered everything for.

“But Dad,” he said, his voice laced with incredulity, “walking through a Portal? How did you reconcile that with your beliefs?”

Noah gave a soft chuckle, one that held no real humour, just the weariness of someone who’d already asked himself the same thing more times than he could count. “I guess I saw it as a sign, an opportunity provided by the Lord. Maybe I stretched my belief a bit too far, but it felt right at the moment.”

Felt right. The phrase clanged in my head like a bell tolling for a funeral. That fleeting certainty—born of fervent hope—had led us here, to this dust-ridden exile. We'd followed the call of the Spirit, or so we’d thought. But now... now everything felt tenuous, like trying to grip water with bare hands.

“It's hard to make sense of it all, isn't it?” Paul said, his voice softer now, shaped by empathy. His eyes sought ours, looking not for answers but for connection—some shared understanding of this madness.

But Noah didn’t flinch. His gaze was steady, his jaw firm, his shoulders set with quiet resolve. “It is, Paul. But I have faith that we're here for a reason. Maybe this is our New Jerusalem, just not in the way we expected.”

I swallowed hard, the ache of disappointment catching in my throat. Not in the way we expected. The words lingered, bitter and unyielding. We had imagined a land flowing with spiritual abundance, a holy city rising from the desert. But what lay before us was dry earth, makeshift shelters, and a silence that screamed of broken promises.

And yet... Noah’s faith held strong, like a flame that refused to die out even in the face of a storm. I envied him, even as my pacing slowed—drawn to the warmth of his conviction, even if I couldn't yet share in its light.

Paul's hand came to rest on Noah's shoulder, a gesture so simple yet brimming with emotion. His voice, filled with something close to awe, cut through the stagnant air like a balm against the rawness of my spirit.

“I admire your faith, Dad. You just walked through a Portal and yet you still believe. That's really something.”

Noah’s smile in response was like a candle flickering against the darkness—gentle, warm, unwavering. It lit something inside me, even if only briefly. “Faith is a powerful ally, son. When our actions reflect our convictions, we can do miracles.” His voice resonated with quiet strength, layered with emotion and a lifetime of lived belief. “Even build a New Jerusalem in the desert.”

A New Jerusalem in the desert. The phrase rang out in my mind, bold and incongruous. And yet, spoken with such heartfelt conviction, it stirred something within me. A whisper of possibility. A flicker of light trying to break through the shadows of doubt that had wrapped themselves so tightly around my soul.

Could it be possible? Could we—exiles and strangers in this alien land—really forge a sanctuary amidst the dust and despair? Could we take the tatters of our broken dreams and weave them into something holy?

Paul chuckled softly, a ripple of humour breaking the solemn stillness. “Actually, it's called Bixbus.”

As Paul and Noah exchanged smiles, their moment of light-heartedness briefly softening the edges of our shared ordeal, I stood apart, unable to summon a smile of my own. The heaviness in my chest remained unmoved. Their laughter, gentle though it was, felt like a language I no longer spoke.

The unease roiling inside me refused to settle. Doubts and fears churned like storm clouds on the horizon, casting long shadows over the fragile hope Noah’s words had kindled.

And so, my pacing continued.

My feet moved of their own accord, slow and deliberate across the dusty earth. The dry ground crunched beneath my soles, the sound strangely loud in the emptiness. I was a solitary figure adrift in the vastness of the Clivilian desert, each step an echo of my inner unrest—a quiet declaration that though my faith faltered, I had not yet surrendered.

Not yet.