CHAPTER 1

Wind from the River

A bird's-eye view of South Jordan, Utah, in the summer of 1996revealed a patchwork of old homes and new housing developmentsunder a brilliant sun, interlaced with family farms, open fields,and tree-shadowed glades, all in the half embrace of the Wasatch Mountains.

A western gull from the nearby Great Salt Lake, swooping low overa suburban neighborhood, sensed breakfast, observing a feast laid out onpicnic tables positioned in the middle of a curving, snaky street barricadedagainst automobile traffic.

Seated with her husband Ted and her children at one of the tablesbeneath the shade of a cottonwood tree, Julie Bell noticed the gull descendto peck away at a few crumbs that had dropped to the pavement from theplate of rolls she had baked for the picnic that morning. Then, bobbing itshead, the bird lifted its orange beak and beady eyes to search for additionalopportunities to forage.

What kind of people, Julie wondered, were her new neighbors. It wasa welcoming sign that the Bells—just moved in—had been invited tothis street party, but no one had yet made a fuss over their arrival. Later,it would seem fortuitous that Julie bumped into the blond woman at thesalad table.

"Hi," the woman said. "I'm Jessica Ann Tobler." Then, poking her indexfinger between her lips, she appeared to be probing her teeth. Realizing thevisual image, she withdrew the digit and clamped her mouth closed.

"I probably have some lettuce between my teeth," she said.

"Uh, no, not that I can tell," Julie said.

Then, attempting to cover the woman's embarrassment with a gestureof her own, she introduced herself. "I'm Julie Bell," she said, offering herhand.

Was it weird, or somehow oddly appealing, that a stranger had chosento present herself by asking if she had food in her teeth? Curious, Juliethought. Was she insecure? Or was the woman's question a touchingvulnerability, an anomaly in what seemed an otherwise jaunty, evenflamboyant, personal style?

Julie was the stranger, after all. She had noticed the busty blond at anadjoining table, telling stories, laughing, and carrying on unselfconsciously.She had a pretty face, big sparkly hazel-green eyes, and shoulder-lengthhair.

A good-looking man sitting on the top step of the entry to a nearbyhouse smiled indulgently at the conversation. Julie took him to be thewoman's mate.

After a moment, the blond called the man over to introduce him. "Myhusband, Dave," she said, her fingers on his shoulder. Julie shook the handhe extended. "We live close by," Jessica said, "just around the corner anda couple of streets down—the house with the flagpole. Drop in when youget the urge."

It sounded like an open invitation, and while the woman's eagernesswas a little overwhelming, Julie was grateful for the connection. She had asparkle and a spontaneity that were hard not to like. Friendly and talkative,she thought. My kind of person.

"Oh, are these your kids?" Jessica asked as two of Julie's three childrenapproached.

She introduced her daughters, Trish, five, and Cady, eleven. A fewmoments later, her son, Brandon, eight, also wandered over. Jessica reachedinto her pocket and gave each of them a piece of candy.

The street picnic had been a boon—a relaxing, no-pressure affair.Jessica Tobler's chattiness had buoyed Julie. Jessica was unlike anyone shehad ever met, Julie decided with bemused fondness.

After the party, Julie and Ted helped clean and pack up the picnictables and chairs. It was enough that Ted had shown up for the barbecue,although he hadn't gotten out of bed early enough to cook steaks andhamburgers on the grill with the other men. It had been after midnightwhen he arrived from Idaho, and he had slept in.

Ted's routine was to connect with his family on weekends afterspending the week in Idaho, trying to make a go of the farm they owned,and then head north again on Monday morning. Why was it that Juliedidn't mind going it alone on weekdays with the kids while catching thebarest whiff of her husband on weekends?

Julie Acheson, now Julie Bell, had never needed to be taken care of. Shehad started earning her own money at age eight, babysitting at twenty-fivecents an hour. Schlepping burgers and milkshakes on plastic trays fastenedto her customers' car windows at a local drive-in had increased her payto eighty-five cents an hour. Tips were rare, but she had put money awayevery week.

As a teenager—people said she was pretty—she had wanted contactlenses instead of glasses for her deep-blue eyes but knew her father couldn'tafford them. That didn't stop Julie. She got a job to pay for them herselfas a cashier at a mom-and-pop food store. The job might have gone to anolder girl, but they had apparently liked her air of confidence.

Julie, third of four sisters and a younger brother, was the quietest ofthem all. Julie had developed her self-assurance despite her older sister'sjibes. Her string of accomplishments at Jordan High School includedfirst cheerleading for the Beetdiggers, a daunting task to create the cloutto transform their infamous team name to something fearsome andrespectable. She then went on to join the pep club, write for the schoolpaper, and was elected president of her school's FHA (Future Homemakersof America). A pretty girl who could cook and run a house—it was the sortof reputation that appealed to boys whose expectations for domestic blisshad been shaped by a traditional upbringing.

She had a burning desire to graduate from college. She first attendedclasses at Snow College and continued on her undergraduate work atthe University of Utah. She would not only do well, she would graduate(a first in her family) with honors. She continued on to earn a master'sdegree at the University of Utah—and had done it without student loansor parental financial support; although it meant managing a malt shop,cleaning college dorm floors, doing secretarial work on campus, and otherjobs sometimes simultaneously.

Working hard had never bothered her. Independence and personalfreedom came as naturally to her as her affinity for sunshine and mountainair.

Julie had married late—at thirty-two—not for lack of interest by theopposite sex. She had been determined not to end up in a smotheringmarriage of domestic dependence and emotional eclipse. It wasn't her ideaof a fulfilling life.

When she had met Ted and began dating him, he didn't pressure herabout defining the relationship or where it was heading. She had liked that.They were still seeing each other a year and a half later, and the destinationof their developing bond remained unclear to her. She wasn't in any rush,she had decided. Matrimony was an option, not a priority.

Julie had a satisfying career teaching deaf children and had managedto build her own home, fighting through a whirlwind of obstacles. Insleepy, conservative Utah in the 1970s, where traditional gender roleswere highly prized and deviations were suspect, young, unmarried womenanticipated marriage as a way of obtaining a home of their own that theirhusbands would provide.

The idea that a single young woman might wish to reverse the processand buy a house well before she considered obtaining a marriage partnerwas virtually unheard of. Any notion that a woman would even dreamof buying land and overseeing construction of her own home would bedismissed by skeptical authority figures. It had taken five years of enjoyingher hard-won house and four of those years finding a comfort level withTed before she was ready to take the plunge.

"You better realize," she had told him, "I'll never be the stereotypicalfarm wife—barefoot and pregnant. I won't be there just to make yourdinner and rub your feet, if that's your dream marriage."

Now, the ironies of which parts of that promise had held true andwhich parts had been blurred to insensibility had come home to roost.

They still had the farm, but Julie wasn't cut out for the life; she wasn'tany kind of farm wife. Which meant Ted was in Idaho with honest soilunder his fingernails and she was in Utah with an unfinished house, fixingdinner, breakfast, and lunch for three kids.

The South Jordan neighborhood where they had just settled was quiet,cozy, and somewhat secluded—winding streets and little cul-de-sacs.While there were neat brick facades and well-groomed lawns typical ofmiddle-class suburbia, domesticity was deceptive—an island in a wilderand more expansive landscape.

Nibbling at the extravagantly lush rectangles of Kentucky bluegrass onthe Salt Lake Valley's desert floor were untrammeled fields of sweet flag,creeping bent grass, weeping love grass, and river oats. The wind carriedthe mixed aromas of the nearby Jordan River and wild growing things,including the sensual scent of sage. For those who cared to observe, therewas a clear view of the mountains.

A semirural suburb southwest of Salt Lake City, South Jordan was astep up for Julie and Ted from their Taylorsville starter home, which Juliehad struggled to build on her teacher's salary before they met and married.The battle to build this new house hadn't involved a court fight or deviouscontractors, as with her first home, but Julie was still grappling with mosteverything by herself.

Funny. She laughed. Isn't that just how I seem to like it?

Julie had made pilgrimages to the construction site every day duringthe summer of 1996, keeping a close eye on potential screwups until thehouse was finished. There were still empty lots in the neighborhood, andthe new home had a semiprivate feel.

While it was being built, a few neighbors from down the street hadstopped by to confess they were happy that civilization and green lawnswould soon rescue the plot of land from what they perceived as only alooming weed-infested wilderness.

Some South Jordan residents seemed attracted to the area because itappeared to be on the verge of a growth spurt; it would be exciting to get inon the ground floor of development and progress. Wasn't it their destiny tosee new restaurants, shops, boutiques, and office towers rise, finally puttingthem on the map? Otherwise, wouldn't they remain faceless residents of ageneric bedroom community?

A survey had indicated, however, that most were pleased the townhad retained its largely rural identity. For them, it was a good thing thecommunity had thus far managed to resist power brokers who wished toexploit open land as merchandise—to buy, sell, or develop it for personalfortune. The landscape was still relatively pristine and a little wild—a placewhere their children could run free. They loved the view of the mountains,a sight they wouldn't fully appreciate until construction cranes throngedthe skyline.

Julie felt the same.

She was willing to take her time getting close to anyone in theneighborhood. Trish, her youngest, was special needs and required a lotof attention and affection. The fact that she couldn't talk (and mightnever learn to speak) was difficult to explain to strangers who didn'tunderstand.

The kids were used to their father's absences and their mother's self-sufficiency.Unless someone raised an eyebrow about the arrangement, itwouldn't occur to Julie that she was either too complacent about her long-distancemarriage or didn't miss having a live-in husband as much as sheshould. While she was glad to see Ted when he showed up late on Fridays,it wasn't as if she pined for him all week after he said good-bye early onMonday mornings.

The change of scenery—figuratively and literally—was beginningto clear Julie's head and her vision. She was healthy and energetic andfunctioned nicely on four or five hours sleep. Now that they were gettingadjusted to a new place, what would be her next challenge?

The location had its compensations. Their lot was perched on a hill thatdescended steeply from their backyard into a picturesque gully. And just aquarter-mile farther below were the Jordan River bottoms, teeming withwildlife. Often visible through a pair of binoculars were white-faced ibis,migrating osprey, foxes, and graceful deer and their fawns. For a fortunate,careful observer, an occasional eagle could be seen high up, surveying thescene. Think of it—the possibility of a fragile sense of peace and nature inwhat otherwise was suburbia. Maybe it wasn't a pipe dream.

The comforting feeling would help while they were settling in.Connecting with neighbors and new acquaintances could come soonenough; enjoying the natural world and her children seemed a sensiblepriority right now. And for Julie, the wonders of the environment hadalways been an extension of her spiritual life.

Unpacking boxes and getting furniture moved from storage afterthe sale of the Taylorsville house gobbled two weekends before Julie gotthe family to church. Any illusions of a period of privacy and anonymityvanished on that first church Sunday.

Being a Mormon and showing up in church made you part of acommunity, whether you were ready for social obligations or not. Welcomedwarmly by members of her neighborhood ward (the congregational unit ofThe Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—frequently referred to as"Mormon" or "LDS"), Julie realized she was ready.

If I'm anything, I'm a people person, she thought. Isolation had beenpart of the problem while feeling stuck on the farm.

The ward bishop quickly made it clear he believed in pushing newmembers to get their feet wet in church service. Normally when a newfamily moved into a ward, both parents were asked to speak from the pulpitin sacrament meeting, the weekly Mormon worship service. But whenthe Bells were approached on their second Sunday to accept a speakingassignment, Ted begged off, ostensibly because he couldn't always predictwhich weekends he could make it home from Idaho.

Julie knew it was more than that. Ted had made it clear that therewere a few aspects of the Mormon religion he wouldn't participate in. Hedrew the line well short of standing behind a pulpit, except perhaps to sayan occasional opening or closing prayer if called upon. As Ted offered hisregrets to the bishop, Julie played along with a neutral facial expression.

"Yes," she said when the bishop turned to her; she'd be willing toaccept the assignment.

Sacrament meeting—so called because its central ritual was the passingof bread and water as emblems of Christ's atoning sacrifice—was given overto sermons during its last hour. These were expected to be authoritativestatements of doctrine, usually delivered by members of the all-male laypriesthood, who cited scripture and quoted the faith's general authorities.Their wives' talks, often less formal and more personal, had come to bedismissed by some as mere appetizers for the meat-and-potato sermons oftheir men.

None of this would have influenced Julie Bell in deciding how to shapeher remarks. She drew on her personal spiritual outlook as the substanceof her church life and made little distinction between personal, spiritual,and public experience.

As she stood at the pulpit on the following Sunday, more than onemember of the congregation noticed she didn't defer to the priesthood orto custom by merely "bearing her testimony" or filling her allotted timewith the story of her family's genealogy. Behind the microphone for lessthan fifteen minutes, she made clear, concise points about a hard-earnedcommitment to Jesus's instructions in the Sermon on the Mount.

Afterward, several people spoke to her warmly and thanked her forher remarks. Ted, who had happily turned up for his wife's talk and waselsewhere in the foyer, seemed also to be fielding friendly comments fromward members.