Where the Dust Doesn't Settle

“It’s one thing to pray for peace—but quite another to stand still when your heart tells you a storm’s already on its way.”

The weight of my conversation with Claire lingered as I moved through the house, my footsteps echoing softly against the tiled floors like whispered confessions in an empty church. Each step felt deliberate, as though I were walking through water—thick with thought, heavy with unease, every movement requiring conscious effort.

The sound of my soles against ceramic was oddly magnified in the afternoon quiet, rising and falling in time with the dull throb blooming behind my temples—an ache that had begun the moment Claire’s voice had crackled down the line.

I moved through the familiar spaces in a kind of daze—half-aware of the silence around me, half-consumed by the silence within me. That hollow, waiting quiet that settles in the wake of shock, when the heart knows something the mind hasn’t yet had time to explain.

The house, once gently humming with domestic life—the clatter of dishes, the low swish of folded laundry, the occasional burst of boyish laughter—now felt like it was holding its breath. As though it too was waiting for news that might change everything.

Even the walls, lined with photographs of birthdays, church functions, and sunburned holidays at Victor Harbor, seemed to lean inwards. They watched me pass with a stillness that felt expectant, as though these faces—frozen in joy—were waiting for answers I no longer had.

Outside, the sun had begun its descent toward the Adelaide Hills, casting its long light through the windows in warm bands of amber and honey. It brushed over skirting boards, caught on picture frames, gilded the corners of furniture like memory returning in gold. It should have been beautiful. It was.

But it felt out of place—too gentle for the heaviness in my chest, too serene for a day that had cracked open with a single phone call.

Dust motes floated in the shafts of light, suspended like tiny stars in slower time. They drifted aimlessly, held aloft by currents too subtle to feel—graceful, thoughtless, weightless. I watched them with a kind of yearning.

How simple it would be, I thought, to drift like that. Without purpose. Without pain. Unanchored by other people’s choices.

The stitched blessing above the doorway caught my eye—Love is spoken here. It shimmered faintly in the angled light, the cream thread against pale blue fabric glowing with the softness I had once so carefully chosen. I paused beneath it, gaze lingering on each tiny cross-stitch, sewn during long evenings when the children were small. Each stitch a whispered intention. That love would live here. That this home would hold forgiveness.

But now, even those words felt fragile. Like porcelain held too long in trembling hands—still beautiful, but perilously close to breaking. Love is spoken here. Yes. But what happened when love wasn’t enough?

When it couldn’t reach across the dry miles between Craigmore and Broken Hill? When it couldn’t pierce the silence Paul had wrapped around himself like armour?

Even the beauty of early evening—the slanted light, the stillness that should have restored—couldn’t reach the unease now rooted deep in my chest. It crept in like a weed, pushing up through carefully tended soil, unwanted but persistent.

It threaded through my ribs, curling around my breath like ivy, tugging it into shallow hitches I could neither ignore nor soothe.

I had cultivated peace in this home with the care others might give to gardens—dusting each shelf with quiet intention, fluffing each cushion as though gentleness could be stitched into fabric. Every meal cooked with the hope that nourishment might touch something deeper than hunger.

This house had been my sanctuary. A soft place in a hard world. A place where harsh words were smoothed away and sharp edges rounded by grace.

But today, that peace felt like fragile glass. A single wrong word, a single unwelcome silence, and it might crack.

One revelation about Paul—his whereabouts, his wellbeing—and it might shatter entirely. And I wasn’t sure I’d know how to sweep up the pieces.

Not this time.

As I passed the kitchen, the faint scent of eucalyptus drifted in from the window ledge, where I kept fresh sprigs in a small ceramic vase—white, with hand-painted blue forget-me-nots. A wedding gift from my sister, it had somehow survived decades of moves and mishaps.

The eucalyptus was meant to calm—earthy, clean, familiar as childhood. The kind of scent that whispered of order and steadiness, of homemade remedies handed down through generations, of long walks beneath gum trees that had stood sentinel through countless seasons of growth and change.

But today, the sharp green fragrance did nothing to loosen the knot in my chest. It did nothing for the dread curled behind my ribs like a wild thing, patient and watchful, waiting to pounce the moment I dared to exhale.

Instead, it reminded me only of stillness I could no longer reach—of a peace that now eluded me, like sleep on a summer night. No matter how many deep breaths I took, no matter how many whispered prayers I offered into the golden afternoon air, calm would not come.

I found Noah in his study, hunched over his desk, a pen in hand and a look of deep concentration carved into his features—the picture of a man wrapped in thought, entirely unaware of the storm that had blown through our house by way of a single phone call.

The lamplight beside him cast a soft halo, bathing the desk in a warm circle of gold that seemed to insulate him from the world beyond. Neat stacks of documents stood at his elbow, edges squared with the precision of a man who found refuge in order—quiet evidence of the methodical nature that had first drawn me to him twenty-five years ago.

A row of uncapped highlighters lay beside the papers—yellow for key points, blue for cross-references, green for open questions. Even his study supplies reflected his way of seeing the world: everything categorised, every loose thread neatly tied. A life arranged in careful layers, nothing left to chance.

The only sounds were the scratch of pen on paper—a soft, steady whisper of thought—and the occasional creak of the old leather chair beneath him. He’d inherited it from his father, and despite my gentle hints about his back, he’d never agreed to replace it.

His brow was furrowed in that familiar way, the one that meant he was balancing figures or preparing a lesson. Focused. Quiet. Contained. Like deep water with no ripples.

There was comfort in the sight of him: in the certainty of his rituals, in the way he built order from the world’s noise, in the calm he exuded like an anchor grounding a ship in stormy seas.

While others flailed through crisis, Noah measured. He checked. He re-checked. Carving clarity from confusion with the careful accuracy of a craftsman. I had always admired that about him—even when I didn’t fully understand it. Even when I wished, just once, he’d leap without looking.

For a long moment, I stood in the doorway, hand resting on the frame, reluctant to disturb him. There was something sacred in his stillness, a quiet reverence in the way he approached even the smallest task. Whether it was writing a lesson on faith or reconciling receipts from the car yard, he gave each task his full attention. His devotion was constant, quiet, exacting.

He had always been like that—methodical, inward, steady as the stone foundations beneath our home.

It was a steadiness that had carried us through many seasons. Through the early years of our marriage, when money was scarce and babies came one after another. Through the noise and need of raising six children, each of whom tested our patience in uniquely exhausting ways. Through the silent struggles every family faces but rarely speaks of, not in sacrament meetings, not in letters to missionaries.

It was one of the things I fell in love with: his ability to anchor. To hold. To stay calm when everything else threatened to collapse.

People trusted him. I trusted him. His presence alone could still a room full of restless ward members or a kitchen full of fretful children. Even when that same stillness felt like distance. Even when it seemed I was watching him through glass—so close I could see every detail, too far to truly touch.

There were days I longed to break through that quiet armour he wore like an extra layer of skin. To know what stirred beneath the silence. To glimpse the private places of his heart, the hidden rooms where he kept his fears, his hopes.

But I had long since made peace with the way he loved—with constancy instead of fireworks. With provision instead of poetry. With presence, reliable and steady, rather than declarations.

Still, the worry that had taken root in me during that call with Claire refused to fade. It scratched at my calm like a splinter beneath the skin, impossible to ignore. I couldn’t reason it away. I couldn’t pray it into quiet.

I felt it humming beneath my skin, a tension too small to name and too large to carry alone. An anxious flutter that grew louder the longer I stood still in that doorway, watching Noah underline scripture passages as though the world hadn’t shifted beneath our feet.

With a soft knock on the open door—a courtesy born of years spent honouring his need for quiet concentration—I stepped inside, my voice barely above a whisper as I spoke his name.

“Noah, do you have a moment?”

He looked up from his papers, and his eyes softened the instant they met mine—a familiar warmth blooming in their depths that never failed to steady me. Even after all these years—decades of marriage, of shared burdens and quiet Sunday mornings—that look could still catch me off guard. It was gentleness, yes, but also something more: a silent presence that spoke of constancy and care. Like a hand at the small of my back, guiding me forward without words.

“Of course, Greta. What’s on your mind?”

I lowered myself into the chair beside his desk, knees brushing against the smooth timber edge—worn by the passage of time, by conversations that had shaped the life we’d built. My hands clasped tightly in my lap, the very picture of composure, though I felt as though I might come undone with a single wrong word.

The cushion gave slightly under my weight, its upholstery faded, threadbare in places. It smelled faintly of cedar and dust—of years of quiet moments in this room. Family budgets. Difficult talks about the children. Midnight discussions about ward members who needed lifting.

Even that gentle give beneath me made me feel strangely small. Not weak, but young. Like a girl again, sitting in her father’s study, bracing for hard truths. Legs not quite touching the floor. Breath caught in the space between question and answer.

“I was talking on the phone with Claire earlier,” I said, carefully measuring each word, determined not to let the flood of worry spill too soon. “She’s looking for Paul. Apparently, he went out last night and never came home.”

Noah’s brow creased, a flicker of concern passing over his face like a shadow across water—barely there, but real. The pen slipped from his fingers and he set it down with a soft click.

“That’s not like Paul,” he said. “Did Claire say anything else?”

I shook my head, my fingers drifting to the hem of my skirt—an old habit, one I’d tried for years to break. Worry had a way of finding its own familiar rhythms.

The cotton was soft from years of washing, the edge slightly frayed—worn thin by time and touch. I twisted it between my fingers, gently, rhythmically. As though, if I turned that thread enough times, I might somehow unpick the whole situation, unravel it into something I could fix.

“Only that she thinks he’s here with us,” I said, the words thick with disbelief. “Hiding out to avoid his responsibilities.”

They left a sour taste on my tongue—bitter and sharp, like medicine that promises healing but burns going down.

I could still hear the edge in Claire’s voice—tight with disappointment, barbed with blame. Her accusation had crackled down the line like static, charged with resentment. It clung now to the edges of my memory, stubborn as smoke after flame—present long after the fire had died.

A heavy sigh escaped Noah’s lips, carrying with it the weight of parental disappointment we’d both come to know too well. He leaned back in his chair, the timber creaking softly beneath him—a sound so familiar it had become the soundtrack to our evening conversations, as steady as his breathing.

His eyes fixed on a point just over my shoulder, faraway and unfocused, as if he might make sense of things by looking beyond them—searching for an answer hidden in the middle distance.

“I haven’t heard from him,” he said, voice low and deliberate—a distant rumble, like thunder warming on the horizon. “Not in a few days, at least.”

The confirmation sent a chill racing down my spine—sharp and sudden, like winter wind through a door left ajar. My heart startled into motion, a panicked flutter trapped behind bone and breath. It beat against my ribs like a bird in a locked room, confused and frantic, desperate for motion when there was none to be found.

I tried to ground myself—pressed my feet into the worn carpet beneath the desk, seeking some anchor beneath the weight of dread—but the panic had already begun to swell. It rose inside me slowly, inexorably, like floodwater seeping through unseen cracks, finding its way into places I’d thought safe.

It reached my hands, my fingertips tingling with cold, and unravelled my thoughts into scattered threads. I inhaled deeply, deliberately, but the breath refused to settle.

“Noah,” I said, my voice trembling despite every effort to keep it firm. “What if something’s happened to him? What if he’s in trouble, or hurt, or…”

I couldn’t finish the sentence. The words caught in my throat, sharp-edged and dangerous—too painful to say aloud, too real to let free. To speak them would be to invite them into the room, to give them form and space and staying power. They would sit with us, unmovable, once named.

Noah leaned forward without hesitation. His hand reached across the desk and found mine—firm, steady, warm.

“Greta,” he said gently, though with the strength of someone who had spent a lifetime speaking from love and not pride. “We can’t jump to conclusions. You know how Paul can be, especially with Claire. He probably just needed a little space—a little time to clear his head.”

I wanted to believe him.

Oh, how I wanted to lean into his steadiness, to draw strength from the warmth of his fingers, from the calmness that coloured the way he saw the world—defined lines, logical steps, solid ground beneath each footfall.

I wanted to be the woman who nodded and let it go. Who trusted time and prayer and the Lord’s timing. Who could place worry into a tithing envelope and call it faith.

But the unease that had rooted itself in my chest refused to be soothed—not by touch, not by scripture, not even by Noah’s quiet certainty. It paced beneath my ribs like a restless creature, alert and waiting. A whisper in my blood that something was wrong.

That the pieces didn’t quite fit. That this wasn’t like Paul’s teenage escapades, the vanishing acts that once came when life felt too tight and freedom called louder than duty.

The study felt smaller now, as though the walls had inched closer, pressing against the edges of my doubt. Every sound was louder—the rustle of my skirt as I shifted in my seat, the steady thud of my heart in my ears.

“But what if it’s more than that?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper—a secret shared in the stillness of the study, where the quiet wrapped around us like a cloak. “What if there’s something else going on, something we don’t know about?”

Noah’s thumb brushed gently across the back of my hand—a gesture that had always meant more than words. A silent reassurance. A grounding presence. It had steadied us through fevers, long nights, disappointments, decisions we hadn’t known how to make but had faced anyway.

But tonight, even that familiar comfort couldn’t quiet the storm within me.

The tempest of fear and doubt churned in my chest, a cyclone gathering strength—stirring old memories and uneasy questions I wasn’t ready to meet. Paul’s voice surfaced in fragments—restless, uncertain, always a little elsewhere. A boy who’d grown into a man who still seemed to be running, even when standing still.

Something deep and ancient stirred within me. Maternal. Intuitive. Unreasoned but insistent. That kind of knowing no logic can dispel.

It was the knowing that tightens your breath without warning. That pulls your attention mid-task for no clear reason. The same instinct that had kept women awake for generations, listening for footsteps that never came, watching the night for unnamed dangers.

The kind of knowing that made you count heads twice. Check locks three times. That whispered in a language older than prayer.

“Greta,” Noah said, his voice calm, steady—like a lighthouse beam slicing through dark waters. “I know you’re worried. But we have to trust that Paul knows what he’s doing. He’s a grown man, and he’s always been able to take care of himself.”

The words were meant to comfort, and I heard the belief in them. Noah’s faith in the resilience of our son. His trust in the strength we’d worked so hard to instil.

But underneath that faith was the weight of hope—hope shaped into certainty out of necessity. A father trying to steady not just his wife, but himself.

I nodded, swallowing hard against the lump rising in my throat—a stone lodged just beneath my voice box. Heavy. Unmoving. It pressed against every unspoken fear, every withheld confession.

I clenched my jaw, the muscles taut with effort, willing it down. Back into that crowded, silent place inside me where unspoken worries waited—restless inmates behind locked doors.

My eyes burned, the tears gathering like storm clouds behind my lashes, but I would not let them fall. Not now. Not in front of Noah, who was trying so hard to be strong for us both.

To cry would make it real. Would crack the composure I’d spent the whole afternoon stitching together like a fragile seam. And I feared that if I started, I might not find the strength to stop. That I would drown in the very tears I had spent a lifetime learning to contain.

“I know,” I said, my voice thin as air. A whisper caught on wind. “But I can’t help but feel like there’s something we’re missing. Something we should be doing.”

The admission hung between us—delicate, translucent. It carried the weight of every mother’s deepest fear: that love might not be enough. That no amount of faith, no number of whispered prayers, could protect the people we loved most.

Noah’s eyes searched mine with quiet intensity, their blue-grey depths reflecting a compassion so still, so steady, it felt like light glancing off undisturbed water. He didn’t rush to fill the silence with words that would only skim the surface. He didn’t interrupt. He didn’t deflect.

He simply looked—really looked—until the trembling parts of me felt acknowledged. Seen. Held, not with answers, but with presence. With the kind of patience that says: I know this matters, even if I don’t yet know what to do about it.

There was no pressure in that gaze, no subtle urging to pull myself together. No eagerness to find a solution before the weight of the question had settled. Only the quiet gift of being witnessed in my worry—without judgement, without hurry.

“I tell you what,” he said at last, a small smile tugging gently at the corners of his mouth. It was the kind of smile that reminded me of dawn—subtle but full of promise.

“Why don’t we give it a day or two, see if we hear anything from Paul or Claire. If we don’t, we’ll reach out to some of the church members in Broken Hill, see if anyone’s seen or heard from him.”

It wasn’t a perfect plan. Nothing about this situation allowed for neat resolutions. But it was something. A foothold in the mire of helplessness that had been rising around me since Claire’s call. A way to turn anxiety into action, even if only softly and slowly.

I nodded, drawing a breath deep into my lungs, willing it to reach the furthest corners of my tension-tightened body. The study, dim with early evening light, suddenly felt less confining. Still heavy with concern, but not quite so suffocating.

“Okay,” I said. My voice was fragile, still quivering at the edges, but firmer now. More sure of its place in the world. “But promise me, Noah. Promise me that if we don’t hear anything, we’ll do something. We won’t just sit back and wait.”

The words carried more than just a request. They carried every plea I’d ever made as a mother. Don’t ask me to watch and wait. Don’t ask me to trust blindly in time when fear is gnawing at my bones. Let me act. Let me protect.

Noah’s smile widened, and in it I saw the years—decades of shared joys and burdens etched gently into the lines at the corners of his eyes. He gave my hand a reassuring squeeze, a vow without ceremony but rich in weight.

A promise not signed or spoken for show, but lived. Written in the quiet acts of constancy that make up a lifetime. It settled around me like a cloak—warm, familiar, dependable.

“I promise,” he said, his voice low but sure, filled with the kind of strength that doesn’t need to shout to be believed. “We’ll do whatever it takes to make sure Paul is safe and sound.”

The gratitude rose swiftly, almost too fast to catch, filling me with an ache that had no words—only sensation. A surge of love, fierce and unbidden, for this man who had stood beside me through the best and worst of everything. My anchor in the storm. My compass when I could no longer see the horizon.

Noah had never drawn attention to his strength. He didn’t puff up with righteousness or play the hero. His strength lived quietly beneath the surface—like bedrock under soil. Seen only in moments like this, when the earth shook and the world shifted and I found, yet again, that he hadn’t moved an inch.

There had been so many times I’d leaned on that strength without even noticing. Through the sick days and long nights. Through years of raising children and keeping faith and finding grace in the ordinary.

And now, in the stillness of our study, I leaned again—knowing without doubt that he would bear it with me. Whatever came. Shoulder to shoulder, as we had since the beginning.

As I prepared to leave, my hand still enclosed in Noah’s warm grasp, a quiet resolve settled over me—not the adrenaline-fuelled kind born of panic, but something deeper, steadier. A slow-burning certainty that reached into my bones and straightened my spine with purpose.

This was not denial. Not wishful thinking dressed up in church phrases or the kind of easy comfort passed around Relief Society like casserole dishes. It was something far more enduring—a knowing that came not from certainty, but from love. From decades of weathering things together, from faith that had been tested and stretched and proven real not because it made everything easier, but because it had never let us fall.

Whatever this was—whatever lay ahead for Paul, whether it was recklessness, crisis, or something we hadn’t yet imagined—we would meet it as we always had. Together. As a family. Bound not just by blood, but by sheer, stubborn, unrelenting love.

Still, as I walked back through the quiet of our home, my steps slow and deliberate along the well-worn hallway runner, the heaviness didn’t lift. It sat on my shoulders like a cloak soaked through—clinging, cold, and punishing in its weight. Not loud, not urgent, but persistent. As if it were reminding me not to forget, not to allow even a sliver of comfort to dull the edge of my concern.

The light had changed while we’d spoken. Afternoon had slipped into early evening unnoticed, and now the hallway was muted, shadows thickening in corners like secrets waiting their turn. The house felt older in this light—more reflective, more knowing.

The photographs that lined the walls—the ones that had watched us grow into parents, into grandparents—seemed to peer at me differently now. Not with cheer, but with a quiet solemnity, as if they, too, had heard the subtle shift in the atmosphere and understood what it meant. As if they were holding their breath alongside me.

Back in the sewing room, the muslin on the table no longer sang its earlier promise. The fabric lay untouched, folded in a stillness that felt almost reverent. It no longer looked like the beginning of a dress. It looked like a waiting place. A pause between one version of life and another.

I ran my fingers lightly across the fabric, but even that small contact felt fraught, as though I might disturb something sacred just beneath the surface.

I couldn’t shake the sense that something was approaching—something larger than Claire’s anger or Paul’s absence. A change that would roll over our lives and leave nothing quite where it had been before. I could feel it pressing at the edges of the day, stirring like wind in the high gums before a storm. Still distant, but unmistakable. Still hidden, but certain.

It wasn’t panic. It was knowing. Instinct, old and true. The kind of knowing that lived in a mother’s marrow, in the deep, wordless part of herself that knew when to look out the window just before the headlights appeared, or when to keep the porch light burning long past midnight.

It was coming. I didn’t know what. But I felt it like a shiver in the fabric of the air.

And I knew—it would change everything.