As they arrived in France, Deborah Sawyer reminded herself of three things that would help her stop the sinning she had been doing on the whole flight.
She should not hate her father, because he had forbidden her to write Caleb Jensen, or see him again. It was her father’s right to decide such things when she was only 15.
It was also Father’s right to take her out of high school to live in her mother’s native France for at least two years because he had been stationed there with the company.
(Of course it was. Should she have stayed back in Salt Lake City alone?)
And finally: Moving to France was for her mother’s sake above all.
Father could have stayed in his position in Salt Lake City. But Mother had been ill, and everyone hoped returning to her homeland might help—at least for a time.
Fretting unduly about all of this, as she had for most of the grueling 10 hours of cross-Atlantic flight, would be … more sinning, even if it was just to herself. She had to stop it now and do better.
So as they walked across the runway area and into Orly, futuristic roof above and a kaleidoscope of people in all colors flowing around them, it dawned on her that she ought to ask God for forgiveness. Right now. And then … show Father and Mother that she was there for them.
More colors passed her by; a young couple – boy and girl – both with long hair, laughing; and … singing something, she did not quite catch in the cacophony of voices, and for a brief moment, Deborah forgot the prayer she had begun formulating in her mind and instinctively turned to glance after them.
But then she heard her father, “There they are.” The colors parted, like scintillating waves; they were through the crowds and in the arrival hall black and white remained.
Two young men, each impeccably dressed in white shirts and black ties, stood smiling and waving a sign: “Sawyer family – bienvenue à France“.
Father stepped forward, his hand outstretched: “Elder Wayne, Elder Marcus – good to finally be here.”
The blond boy with cropped hair, who went by the name of Elder Wayne, took Father’s hand and his smile seemed to waver, even though he was still politeness incarnate. “We are sorry, Brother Sawyer, that the President and Sister Henderson could not join us to receive you. The conference—”
“It is quite understandable,” George Sawyer said. “I had a lengthy conversation with President Henderson by phone before we left Salt Lake City, and it is good that the mission is engaged. May I present my family?” He turned towards the dark blond quiet woman who had been standing rigidly at attention beside Deborah, clutching her bag.
“Sister Delacroix,” Elder Wayne greeted, followed by Elder Marcus, bowing their heads slightly as they gingerly shook Hélène’s hand. “Thank the Lord that He has blessed you and your family to be able to return to your homeland.” Deborah felt something clutch at her heart, which was already a knot she had tried to untangle during the 10-hour flight from JFK. But when her mother finally smiled, Deborah could at least breathe.
“It is very kind of you to be here for us,” Mother said in a low voice, barely audible in the cacophony around them, “and I am grateful to the Lord indeed. It has been so long.”
George smiled approvingly and gently guided Hélène Delacroix to his side, a hand lightly on her elbow. Then there was no hiding anymore.
“Elders—my daughter, Deborah Sawyer.”
They both greeted her and Deborah did the same, remembering to thank each one, too. She thought Elder Marcus might look a bit like Caleb, but … not enough. Which was just as well. She had to think of the right things now.
Their luggage had been taken by a white-gloved porter and there were no more immigration checks to deal with, so the elders led them to the waiting mission car, while Elder Wayne conversed politely with George.
They were about 10 meters from the big doors to the parking lot, when he turned to look for his wife and daughter. “Hélène, are you—?”
Deborah wrapped her arm around her mother’s and kept trying to say a blessing to herself, a prayer, something that she childishly hoped would ease her mother. We thank you, we thank you.
And then Hélène tore herself away from Deborah’s arm and headed for the nearest restroom.
“I have to go.”
Her father went completely still and mechanical. The Elders froze, too. Then George Sawyer nodded at Deborah, strained, formally. And Deborah knew what she had to do. And then the blessing died, the prayer, whatever it was she’d been trying to piece together to help her mother. It died inside her head. And deeper inside.
And then she was just right behind her mother. Now it was only movement, movement, movement. Doing the right thing at the right times. They went into the ladies’ room, which was lit by a pale light.
She guided her mother to one of the stalls, far from the door, far from the other women in there who were washing hands and putting on makeup and looking. Now they were both there. They’d closed the last door, and they could get the pill box out while her mother’s hands shook. She was trying really hard to make it all seem normal, but she wasn’t looking at Deborah. Even after they’d closed the door, Deborah knew the two women who’d stayed a bit were still standing and looking, listening.
“Oh, Deborah. Deborah.” Her mother’s voice was thin.
“It’s okay, Maman. Just breathe.”
Her mother tried to breathe, but it didn’t help.
“Alright then.” Deborah took the pill box from her. “Take this one.”
She guided her mother’s hands, helped her find a pill so she wouldn’t spill it on the floor. Her mother swallowed it and helped it down without water. She was so used to it.
And now they could go out again.
There was a blonde woman out there now, and she looked when they both came out of the toilet. Deborah ignored her.
She had to take her mother’s arm again. She also had to start the prayer up again, the blessing, call it what you will. It was something she did herself because she hoped someone was listening. She always hoped someone was listening. She’d never stop that.
But it was harder to hope. It was like every day was harder in many ways.
And then suddenly they were out, and her father was waiting. It was like he’d been standing straight up and down in the same way the whole time.
“Is she okay?” he asked.
Why don’t you ask her yourself?
Deborah was about to say it to him. She bit it back.
“Yes,” she said.
Her father nodded and turned to go, without saying more. The porter continued working as if nothing had happened. Elder Marcus came forward. “Can I help?”
“No,” Deborah said, “It is all right. You are all right, aren’t you, Maman?”
Hélène nodded vaguely.
But at least her mother could walk on her own now, and they went out toward the car that Elder Wayne quickly located among all the other vehicles.
George tipped the porter who had done all the actual lifting so far of their assortment of suitcases and stacked them with efficiency in the Citroën’s trunk. Deborah ushered in her mother on the backseat. “Now we are in Paris, Maman—we—you are home.”
Her mother seemed to breathe freely for the first time; she gazed out at the sea of cars with a wistful look. “We are, Deborah. Thank the Lord.”
Elder Wayne started the car and George got in on the passenger seat. The backseat was not too cramped for the three others – Elder Marcus, Deborah and Hélène – as the car was big, bigger than Deborah had expected a European car to be … which was an odd thought to have.
To distract herself, Deborah looked around as they merged onto the Autoroute du Sud, letting a hand rest on her mother’s arm and at the same time taking in the sea of cars and the rest of the highway. . She had to focus on … what she had to do. And who she had to do it for. Her hand squeezed Mother’s arm a little more firmly.
*
Around them, the city shifted, the wide lanes of the autoroute giving way to narrower, grander streets, canyons of pale stone and wrought-iron balconies. Elder Wayne navigated the churning traffic with a focused calm.
“Rue de Longchamp,” he announced finally, pulling the Citroën to a smooth stop before an imposing building. “Number 104.”
“Oh, Georges,” Hélène breathed, her voice a little too bright. “C’est magnifique, n’est-ce pas?”
It wasn’t magnificent. It was intimidating. Thick oak doors sat deep in carved stone, looking like they hadn’t been opened willingly in a century. A knot tightened in Deborah’s stomach. This was nothing like the wide, welcoming front porch of their brick house in Holladay.
Elder Marcus was already on the sidewalk, wrestling the first of the suitcases out of the trunk. George gave instructions, directing them like it was a troop deployment. They entered the building into a cool marble entryway where their footsteps echoed disconcertingly to Deborah. Floor wax and old stone scented the air. A cramped, cage-like elevator with a brass accordion gate waited in the corner.
“It will be a tight fit,” George noted. “Elders, if you would be so good as to take the service stairs with the luggage? We’ll meet you on the sixth floor.”
All three squeezed into the lift. As it groaned its way upwards, Deborah felt the walls pressing in, the city outside vanishing behind the grimy glass. When the gate rattled open on their floor, they emerged into a dim landing. Her father produced a key and turned it in the lock.
When opened, the door revealed not a room, but a long, narrow hallway that stretched into shadow. Their breathing seemed too loud in the sudden, oppressive silence.
“Well,” George said, stepping over the threshold. “Here we are.”
He led them down the hall into the main salon. Light from two tall windows illuminated a room that seemed both grand and hollow at the same time. High ceilings soared above them, decorated with ornate moldings, and a marble fireplace stood cold and barren against one wall, a stark electric heater placed before it like an apology. Beautiful herringbone parquet was bare beneath their feet, amplifying every scuff of their shoes.
A stiff, boxy sofa and two matching armchairs upholstered in a scratchy olive tweed. A low coffee table of chrome and glass. On the walls, framed prints of abstract swirls of color.
“Oh, look!” Hélène said, her voice strained. She ran a hand along the back of the sofa. “The company was so thoughtful to arrange everything.” She moved to one of the prints and adjusted its angle by a fraction of an inch, her hands fluttering.
In the center of the room, like a monument to a life left behind, was a mountain of cardboard boxes. Stenciled on the side of each one were the words: SAWYER – SALT LAKE CITY, UT.
Seeing them piled on the elegant old floor struck Deborah with something … vertigo? That was their home. The contents of those boxes. But no. She had to stop it now, she admonished herself.
While her father located the phone jack and confirmed the line was active, Deborah drifted away, down the long hallway, drifting like a ghost in someone else’s house. She pushed open the last door at the very end.
Her room was compact, with a sharply slanted ceiling that made one side feel cramped. A narrow bed with a plain brown coverlet was tucked against the wall, next to a simple wooden wardrobe. A narrow desk and a hard chair sat beneath the only window. She walked over to it and looked out, not onto the grand street, but the closed backyard and above it the tangled geography of Parisian rooftops, chimney pots, and slate tiles, slick with a fine mist of rain.
The view triggered a memory so sharp it made her gasp.
Sunlight. Blinding, brilliant sunlight flooding the family room back home. She was lying on the soft, wall-to-wall carpet, looking through the huge picture window at the sheer, impossible size of the Wasatch Mountains. The vast, clean blue of the sky.
Here, looking at the endless, chaotic rooftops, she felt lost.
A cheerful voice from the salon broke the spell. “That’s the last of them, Brother Sawyer!”
Elder Marcus and Elder Wayne appeared in the doorway, their faces flushed from the six flights of stairs. “We’ll leave you to get settled,” Elder Wayne said, his smile kind. “God bless you in your new home.”
The door closed. Deborah watched her mother wrap her arms around herself, the bright facade from the street dimming. She thought about whether she should help her to the Valium box again but instead helped her to the stiff couch. At least in some perverse way the lack of comfort might keep her mother sharp, or so she told herself. “Should we try to make some lemonade, Maman?” she asked. “I saw a small épicerie just down the road. I could—”
“No, no dear—it is quite all right. I just need to sit a bit.” Her mother breathed deeply and forced a smile. “Get my bearings.”
“You are home,” Deborah said reassuringly.
“Salt Lake City is also my home,” Hélène corrected.
Deborah nodded. “Okay.”
“We need to make a schedule,” she heard her father say as he, back to them, unpacked the box with more of his papers and stacked them on the glass table. Deborah almost smiled at the irony—a coffee table in a family that would never touch the stuff.
Deborah stood up from the sofa. She gazed intently at the cardboard pile in the middle of the room, then went over beside her father.
“I believe your items are there,” he said helpfully.
“Yes,” she said. “Yes, they are.”
Her eyes spotted what she needed: a medium-sized box marked DEBORAH’S ROOM – BOOKS. She pressed both palms against its rough surface. This box, at least, belonged to her.
*
“Tomorrow I will go to the company, just to get some things settled. But we will all want to be at the Mission Home by nine Thursday,” Father said, already reviewing his papers at the glass coffee table. “That gives us time for morning devotional–and to get used to the clock again.” He treated Deborah and her mother to a quick smile. Deborah was grateful, if nothing else then for the opportunity to sleep, and not really grasping how her father could plan to go to the company office before next week. She herself felt slightly nauseous about going to the mission as early as the day after tomorrow. Saturday would be a lot better–or Monday! Unfortunately, it wasn’t for her to decide.
He pulled up more of his own papers and placed them in a neat stack on the table which was already quite filled.
“We will have to see the local chapel as soon as possible,” Father continued. “I look forward to meeting the ward members in person. And the mission president of course, before that. There’s only so much you can know about people in letters … ”
They didn’t go out for dinner. Exhaustion and jetlag weighed down on everyone, so they made a makeshift meal of crackers and cheese from a small bag Hélène had packed, eaten in near silence while sitting on the stiff sofa.
Her mother had also been conspicuously mute during the short meal—so much so that even George had asked how she was, in front of Deborah.
Since at least last summer, her mother had spoken every week about her closest family, especially about Honfleur—and about how awful it was that she had visited France so little in fifteen years. So why wasn’t her mother happier now that they had come back to stay—at least for as long as
Father held the position in IMT’s French branch; opposition he had specifically asked for because he wanted to let Mother go home?
Deborah felt like saying something but chewed on her lip instead. Nobody had asked if she was okay with saying goodbye to Wilma and Jean, perhaps for good. Of course, she hadn’t expected anyone to ask, but still… at the very least, her mother could have asked how she felt. Instead, there had only been reassurances:
It will be fine—you will see. I moved a lot when I was your age, too.
You will get a good education—much better than your friends.
It is good for you to learn more about your roots.
Back in the salon, there was still their little mountain of luggage to contend with. Hélène began opening suitcases and placing each item in them in drawers and cupboards with precision.
But Deborah accepted it gladly, since she quickly noticed that this particular task, at least for now, seemed to cheer her mother up quite a bit. Hélène was even softly singing a small tune—Le Temps des cerises–which Deborah recognized as a childhood song her mother had sung to her when she was little, and sometimes still sang to herself in the kitchen back home in Utah.
“Cerises d’amour aux robes vermeilles
Tombant sous la feuille en gouttes de sang
Mais il est bien court, le temps des cerises
Pendants de corail qu’on cueille en rêvant … ”
Her father had taken his papers to the small desk in the corner to review company documents, and—no doubt— some pertaining to the mission as well: a truly dedicated undertaking after having done the same throughout every hour of the entire flight. But at least that left Deborah to herself.
Feeling more relaxed, she drifted to the window in the salon, keeping her expression demure, and not expecting anything more than having to kill time until she could finally go to bed.
Then her heart skipped a beat at the scene that revealed itself below, in the backyard below.
A young couple lingered in a goodbye kiss, stretching time like warm caramel. They seemed unconcerned whether anyone was watching. Deborah found herself staring at them.
Her father’s voice interrupted her thoughts. “I think it is about time to call Salt Lake.” He left the salon to find the phone in the hallway.
Deborah was just glad she didn’t have to talk to her grandparents back home or her mother’s family in Honfleur for that matter — to anyone. She needed some space in her head. And sleep …
“Let’s just get the bedrooms in order, chérie,” Hélène said, her voice regaining a sliver of its former calm. “Then we can properly rest. We can feel a bit more human.”
Deborah nodded and picked up an armful of her own clothes from a splayed-open suitcase on the parquet floor. She carried them into the master bedroom, which her mother had turned into a command center. The bed, a severe, modern piece chosen by the company, was already covered in precise piles of folded clothing. Hélène stood before a tall, dark wood armoire, its doors swung wide, revealing a vast, empty, slightly musty-smelling space.
Two years, Deborah thought, watching her mother begin to place a stack of linens on a deep shelf. That was the plan.. But what would be there for her when – if – she came back?
Her mother was already arranging their shoes with precision. Through the window,down below, the young couple was still saying goodbye. Deborah managed to catch a surreptitious glance but was careful not to let her mother notice. The momentary ease from the arrival appeared to be fading with her, and Deborah could only hope it wouldn’t dissolve entirely before they turned in for the night.
*
The Parisian streetlights came on one by one outside the windows. And something came over Deborah. Something she had tried to push away through the whole flight. No. Not just the flight …
She would write the poem. She had to. The guilt had been building all through the flight – that Caleb thought she’d simply stopped caring, because she had told him she would not even write him. It didn’t matter that it had been Father’s decision, and that Caleb had said he understood. She felt she was betraying him – and betraying what they had had, those brief six weeks.
So she had to write, somehow. But where?
Her bedroom offered no privacy. It was barely “hers”. She detested it this evening. The cardboard towers of their hastily packed life blocked the windows, and her father’s voice drifted from the salon, discussing something in low, serious tones with her mother.
Then she had an idea. She gathered what she needed: toiletry kit, clean nightgown, the factory-stiff towel, and buried beneath it all, the turquoise notebook.
The bathroom. An oddly proportioned room, all height and narrow width, dominated by the old chauffe-eau bolted to the tiled wall. The gas water heater’s pilot flame flickered as she fumbled with the unfamiliar knobs. When the familiar roar finally came, she tucked her toiletry bag—notebook hidden inside—onto the wooden stool and lowered herself into the deep iron tub.
The water embraced her with foreign comfort. She unwrapped a bar of Savon de Marseille, and now its clean, olive-oil scent rose with the steam—so different from the flowery soaps back home in Salt Lake. For a moment she let herself drift, watching the steam fog the mirror. Then the memory returned: that couple – kissing without shame or hurry.
And with that image came the sharper ache. Last spring, behind the gymnasium after the honor assembly. The smell of new grass …. Caleb had been explaining something about the mountains, when he’d stopped mid-sentence and looked at her with sudden focus. His hand had moved toward her face just as Mrs. Gunnerson’s voice cut across the courtyard: “Miss Sawyer! Mister Jensen! The tardy bell rang three minutes ago.”
The bath water felt less warm now. She remembered the rest: sharing a Sprite at Gardner’s Market, the way Caleb understood her poem about winter on the mountains without needing footnotes. The way he’d looked at her when she read it aloud in class, like she’d said something true about the world. Then her father’s decision, delivered like a closing door: no more seeing Caleb. “You are too young”. But she sensed something else beneath the explanations, something that made her cheeks burn.
The final weeks of school had been careful torture. Avoiding him in the hallways while her chest ached with the effort. Watching him realize, bit by bit, that she was keeping her distance. The hurt in his eyes had gradually calcified into something harder, more distant. He’d stopped waiting by her locker. Her last two letters—smuggled out through her friend Sarah—had gone unanswered. The silence felt like punishment for her cowardice.
Her own conscience provided its familiar refrain: Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long upon the land. But another voice whispered back: What honor is there in cruelty? In letting him believe that I am not even going to try to … care?!
And yet … was it right to try to … do something? After all, her father had made the decision. And yet, was her father right? Why was she too young? Many girls her age … The memory of Caleb’s hand moving toward her face—was that really so sinful? The longing she felt now, warm and insistent as the bath water—her hand rested on her left breast, and it was like … was this what was meant by impure thoughts? ‘For the strength of youth …’ She had to remember that.
But any thoughts of strength evaporated just as quickly as she tried to muster them.
I have to let him know how terrible I feel! If I don’t let him know I am a coward.
She sat up abruptly, water sloshing against the tub’s iron sides. She climbed out, barely wrapping her robe before retrieving the notebook. Perched on the closed toilet seat, water still dripping from her hair onto the page, she began to write. The poem would be more than memory—it would be proof. Proof that she hadn’t abandoned him, that the girl who’d shared her deepest thoughts about sky and stone was still there, just trapped behind an ocean and her father’s careful plans.
And her hands shook, because she knew she should have had the courage to say all of this when she brought Caleb the news, instead of just acting like … a shellshocked, dumb little … . Instead of being so ashamed and out of it she just yearned to escape responsibility by putting 5000 miles between … them
This ocean is a word I cannot speak,
A silence Father built between our hands.
If you decide my name is now too weak
To whisper in our once and future lands,
Then let this page a final witness be—
And then … A gentle rap on the door.
“Deborah, ma chérie?” Her mother’s voice, soft with concern. “Papa et moi, we’re stepping out for air before bed. You’ve been quiet in there so long—ça va?“
The door handle turned. Hélène must have assumed the old lock would catch, because she pushed with more force than a gentle check would require. The door swung wide.
There sat Deborah on the toilet lid, robe loosely belted, face flushed from steam and something deeper. The notebook lay open in her lap, her pencil poised above words that hadn’t yet found their ending.
Hélène paused in the doorway, taking in the scene: her daughter’s startled face, the scattered toiletries, the notebook with its urgent scrawl already spotted with water and what might have been tears.
“Ma petite?” She stepped inside and closed the door softly. Her eyes moved from Deborah’s face to the notebook and back again. “Qu’est-ce que tu écris?” she asked gently, extending her hand not as a demand, but as an invitation.
Deborah could still barely move, so it became a half-hearted gesture—handing the book to her mother, who took it from her hands as she tried to make it seem natural, casual. But she was looking away.
She stepped inside, closing the door quietly behind her. “May I?” she asked softly in French, holding out her hand.
Deborah looked down at the tiled floor, her cheeks burning. Her mother read the few frantic lines, her face composed but her eyes betraying a deep, familiar sorrow. She didn’t comment on the words. She just handed the book back, her touch gentle.
“I thought as much,” Hélène said, her voice a low murmur. “This is for Caleb.” It wasn’t a question.
Deborah squeezed her eyes shut and gave a single, tight nod. She waited for the lecture, the disappointment, the command to stop this foolishness at once. Instead, Hélène let out a long, quiet sigh. She smoothed her robe and sat on the edge of the tub, a few damp spots from the shower still clinging to the porcelain.
“You have your grandfather’s heart,” she said. “This passion… It is a gift. But it is a dangerous one.” Her gaze was direct, her expression unreadable. “Your father must never see this. Understand?”
“Okay,” Deborah whispered, still staring at the floor. A voice inside her screamed to act casual, as if this were nothing, but it was a useless defense.
Hélène’s features softened. “Ma chérie, I know your heart aches. But sending this… what do you hope it will accomplish?”
The question, so calm and rational, unlocked something in Deborah. The words tumbled out, raw and desperate. “I just… I want him to know. I don’t want him to think I just left, that I didn’t care. That I was a coward. It wasn’t my choice, Maman. It wasn’t.”
Hélène nodded slowly. “I know.”
“He won’t even answer my letters,” Deborah confessed, the shame of it a fresh wound. “But a poem… it’s different. It’s… a piece of me. The part he knew. I just want him to have it, so he doesn’t forget me. So he doesn’t hate me.”
Hélène’s hand found Deborah’s shoulder, her grip surprisingly firm. “He could never hate you,” she said. Then, her voice dropped, becoming a conspirator’s whisper. “But sending it is not a good idea, Deborah. It will only bring you more pain. And if your father were to find out…” She left the threat hanging in the air, a cold and heavy thing.
“But—”
“Listen to me,” Hélène said, her tone gentle but insistent. “You are in Paris now. A new life. It feels impossible right now, I know. But you are a beautiful young woman. You will meet new people. You will find someone new, someone… appropriate. In time. Maybe in our ward. Maybe in the new school. You will see.”
“I don’t want someone new,” Deborah said, her voice trembling. “I just want him to know how … I really felt. And … that I wasn’t a coward.”
Hélène looked at her daughter for a long moment.
Then she stood up, pulling her robe tighter around herself. She had given the warning. “It will only hurt you more, ma petite,” she said again, in a low almost whispering voice. She stroked Deborah’s damp hair, a gesture of love and surrender.
“Helene?” They both heard George calling from the salon now. “Is everything all right? We should be going soon.”
“I am coming,” Helene answered, her voice clear again.
Then, without another word, she turned and left the bathroom, closing the door softly behind her. Deborah was alone again.
She looked at her reflection in the steam-fogged mirror, a blurry stranger … It will only hurt you more.
There had to be a way for it, not to be like that she thought. But on the other hand, maybe some things were just impossible to avoid.
*
Deborah could not sleep that night. She rolled around many times in her new bed, which didn’t feel like her bed. She listened to the sounds of the city, so different from what she was used to back home. It was like there was an entire life going on outside that never stopped. Even if she could take some of it away by closing the window tightly and pulling the thick blinds across, the unease remained.
She thought about her mother folding clothes, efficient and dedicated. A mother she might have known for some time but had never really seen before. A mother who seemed to fold the shirts and the pants, and place the various items in the cupboards. And it was only now that Deborah realized that this was how it was going to be. Her mother would never put things differently on the shelf, or in the cupboard, or fold clothes differently. She would always do it as if the smallest error could invoke a catastrophe. And that thought made Deborah feel … cold.
At length, she turned on a small light and began to leaf through her notebooks, her own books, and of course, the scriptures—anything within reach from the boxes to distract herself. But her mind was not at ease. She leafed through her own notebooks more than once, and because she was so frustrated and tired but still could not sleep, she was tempted to write that letter to Caleb and tell him of her feelings—that she had not meant to run out on him.
But on the other hand, how could she? She would not only betray her father if she did that, but she would also betray a very important guideline, a framework that was important in any relationship: to honor your father and mother. Without that, what would the world be like? She felt sick to the heart at the thought of having to do that. And of course, she shouldn’t do it.
On the other hand, there was the Gospel of John. ‘And the truth that shall set you free.’
‘The truth shall set you free …’
And the problem was that if she did not tell Caleb the truth, she would not set him free. He would be captured; he would be bound. She was sure of it.
So how could she reconcile the two?
In the end, there was only one way that offered the slightest hope for sleep. She began writing, in full, all of her feelings and the poem. It was as raw and as honest and as painful—and also as shameful—as she felt. But it was the truth.
Then she sat for some time with it. It was about two pages, not very long but very concise. If Caleb read this, he would know the truth and he would be free. But if she sent it, she would break another frame, another vow, that she could not break.
So she had to find a third way. But who could she ask? There was no Bishops or Apostles nearby, at least not now when she needed to talk to someone. And obviously not the Prophet himself was in far-away Salt Lake City and … obviously no.
She reckoned that the closest authority on scripture above her father might be the Mission President. They would go to a welcoming meeting at the mission in some days, but she could not reveal this to him, except in very indirect terms. Not because she felt that the Mission President might betray her and tell her father that she considered breaking her vows, or because she suspected he would probably agree that this vow was the most important. No, it was more mundane than that. She simply felt ashamed of sharing her feelings, and she didn’t know how to lie. And when would she even be alone to ask him?
No, she had to go back to what was always the answer: to ask God directly for guidance. In this case, she could share her feelings freely. She knew that God would not judge her for being in doubt; it was only a matter of what she actually did.
So, after having prayed for some time, she felt not peace, but maybe a kind of calm. And she knew what she had to do. There was, of course, some part of her that said she couldn’t be sure that God had put this particular choice in her heart, that she might have to refer to someone like the Mission President to be sure. But on the other hand, it felt like a place where she could leave her feelings and still be relieved—not just for herself, but also for Caleb, and for her father. And she had to make a choice. Now.
So put the letter in an envelope. And she wrote just one addressee on it.
To my Heavenly Father.
Then, underneath:
May you keep this, and bring it to the one who needs to see it.
Amen.
*
October 17, 1967
*
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