Zion National Park, where the Jensens had their ranch, lay three hundred miles south, almost at the corner of Utah, Arizona, and Nevada. If Aiden hadn’t needed to go to the Capitol, it would’ve made more sense to fly into Vegas, but he was glad to have seen Salt Lake City in the end. You couldn’t really understand the Mormon worldview without understanding Salt Lake—a handsome little Jerusalem willed into existence in this harsh landscape of brine and desert. He was sure Orson Jensen’s conservative politics—all independence, self-reliance, and pulling yourself up by your bootstraps—had its roots here, somewhere with the Mormon pioneers and the hardy frontier settlements. Plus if Aiden hadn’t come to Salt Lake, he wouldn’t have met Jesse, and that would’ve been a shame. He smiled to himself as he joined the I-15 heading out toward Provo. They’d only been passing ships, but he felt it was one encounter he’d carry with him.
The stubby Salt Lake City skyline receded in the rearview, suburban tract housing passing by on either side of the highway, vibrantly green against the ochre desert. Soon Salt Lake was lost entirely beneath the tumbledown humps of the Twin Peaks. He drove through Provo and past Utah Lake, a smaller, freshwater cousin to the Great Salt Lake he’d come from. Driving on the wide, western roads was easy, and Aiden realized he’d forgotten how relaxing just cruising along could be. The sky was bright, fall blue and endless, the sun glinting off the chromed trucks gliding to the coasts.
The radio slid between country and Christian rock as he traveled deeper into the Utah Valley, past dusty green towns with names like Nephi and Levan. The land was flat and scrubby, always bordered by mountains, which rose and fell and leaped along with the passage of the car, like a geological cardiogram. He passed smaller Mormon temples, their white spires crowned with the golden angel, Moroni. Mormons believed it was Moroni who’d appeared to their prophet Joseph Smith in 1823, guiding him to the golden tablets that became the Book of Mormon, buried under a hill in Manchester, New York. Moroni always carried a trumpet pointed east toward the Holy Land. Religion asserted itself here more than Aiden was used to. New York had its temples, churches, synagogues, and cathedrals, and a thousand different sects and traditions all crowded on top of one another in a modern-day Babylon. It was the background, though, not the focus of things. Here, faith was the cross on a lawn, the prayer board outside a town hall, the bumper stickers quoting scripture, the WWJD mud flaps. Outside Scipio, Utah, Aiden listened for a while to Mormon radio, all sunny guitar music and a soft-voiced woman discussing motherhood.
“I never set out to have ten children. I used to joke, I won’t have ten, but I prayed on it, and fasted even, and the Heavenly Father showed me a face, a young boy, and I just had this sense that not everyone was here yet. It’s God, you know, who does the work. I really believe it’s God raising them up. I joke with them, I say my kids are old souls. I learn as much from them as they learn from me. That’s the Heavenly Father’s gift to me….”
Aiden turned the dial until he found Keith Urban again. He didn’t know what he thought about religion exactly, but the certainty of her voice stuck with him, the idea that she really believed it, peered into the void and found something meaningful. Purposeful. He supposed it must be a nice feeling. He was Catholic, in a notional way. His family was, and their milestones—births, marriages, deaths—always had the vague shape of the Church to them. His grandparents were practical, blue-collar Catholics of the Irish type, far removed from any metaphysical or philosophical posturing. Their universe was a simple one: good people were rewarded, and bad people were punished. The priest was a local authority you gave his due, like the cop or the high school principal. Aiden didn’t think he’d ever heard any of his relatives define what they believed. Their religion was just a given and not all that important. Then he’d started to understand his sexuality, and religion became the enemy, the slogan on the sign, the red-faced ignorance of the bigot and the charlatan. Plenty of gay people turned hostile to faith, and he understood that. He wasn’t hostile exactly, more confused. It seemed like a self-evident con: Joseph Smith digging up his golden tablets, and conveniently losing them again. People built their whole lives on that? The ancient religions weren’t any more believable, just older, cloaked in mystique and inertia.
A big rig with Nevada plates cut across his lane, forcing him to brake sharply.
Maybe religion was just trying to come to terms with death. It occurred to him sometimes, the reality that there’d be a moment when he’d be lying in a hospital bed somewhere, dying, and then that would be it. Here and gone. Nothing. Or something. Maybe there wouldn’t be a moment, just a shriek of brakes or a sharp pain in the head or chest. Tomorrow, or the day after, or fifty years from now. Maybe his plane home would fall out of the sky. Sometimes he wished he could’ve talked to his mother about it before she was gone. She’d known it was coming. She wasn’t religious, not really. Christmas and Easter. She must’ve been confirmed, because they’d buried her in the Catholic cemetery in Woodside on an incongruously beautiful summer day where the bugs buzzed in the trees and the sun glinted off the distant Manhattan skyline. He’d never actually been told she was dying; the knowledge had just disseminated, diffusing slowly through the house. It was like a fog, starting in her bedroom, with its drawn shades and organic staleness, pouring down the stairs to the kitchen, where his aunts whispered, drifting in the furrows his Micro Machines made in the den carpet. Ma was sick. Then Ma was unwell. Then Ma was in the hospital. Then Ma was dead. Hadn’t she been at his recital too, though, and in the kitchen, slathering peanut butter and jelly? Didn’t they take the subway out to Rockaway one day and she helped him gather shells for his science project? He had an image of her face staring into the wind, her boxy wig shifting in the breeze. Maybe it had never happened. Maybe he’d constructed it from fragments, home videos, and Hallmark dramas. She’d died two months after his eleventh birthday. They’d had an open casket, but he didn’t remember what she looked like after.
He stopped in Beaver, Utah for gas, the afternoon sun growing long on the stucco walls of the houses. The bored clerk rang up his bottle of water and packet of Lifesavers without comment. If she was a Mormon daydreaming about ten children sent by the Lord, she didn’t look it.
Aiden climbed back in the car and put the Jensen address in the navigation system. The terrain had turned rocky over the last fifty miles, the landscape climbing up toward the mountains and the Virgin River, the tumultuous intersection of the Colorado Plateau, the Great Basin, and the Mojave Desert. He tried to imagine the Mormon pioneers laying eyes on this vista for the first time, the red sandstone and the scattered scrub far removed from the leafy green places they’d left back east. No wonder they’d compared themselves to the Jews wandering the desert. Aiden thought it made a paltry kind of paradise, but there was water here, land to pasture, and ready-made rock walls to shelter them from the worst of the desert and the judgments of outsiders. He supposed it was an irony that people who’d gone to such great lengths to live on their own terms had always been so determined to stop people like him living on his.
The navigation system found its satellite somewhere overhead, telling him he still had a hundred miles or so to go. As he went, the road sloped upward, rising into a dramatic world of canyons and monoliths, ancient boulders and pine forest. The mountains rose overhead, and frozen remnants of last week’s snowfall dusted the roofs as he drove into Springdale, near the park’s southern entrance. It was a pretty little town, with an Old West main street of brick and timber frontages, crowded with hikers and idling RVs. Aiden clocked a bar and glanced at the navigation screen. Twenty miles to the Jensen ranch. He’d remember that, in case he ever needed to escape for a few hours. He could put up with anyone’s politics or religion for a while, but not totally sober. Maybe no alcohol was just the start. Maybe they were planning to lock him in some cabin in the woods until he produced a flattering profile, Stephen King–style. Maybe Mother Jensen would come in like Kathy Bates and break his ankles until he embra
ced the Lord.
Traffic dropped away after Springdale, receding to an occasional pickup or car heading the opposite direction as he rose higher into the hills. Aiden slowed down and lowered his window. It was cold, but the air was peppery with pine, alive with birds and wind. He passed a waterfall, white water and a tumble of red rock. He could see the canyon. It stretched almost the entire western length of the park, carved out by the north fork of the Virgin River, two thousand feet deep in places. The walls were stark, red sandstone, the floor alive with greenery. It was beautiful, undeniably. Just when it seemed like the road was leading into total wilderness, the navigation pinged a warning that the Jensen property was approaching. Sure enough, two stacked-rock columns appeared out of the forest, supporting an imposing black security gate. One of the pillars had an intercom, and Aiden pulled over to buzz in.
It rang for a long time, and Aiden imagined a large house beyond, the kind it took some time to cross.
“Hello?” a female voice inquired.
“Hi, it’s Aiden McCabe. With The Times.”
“Hello! Welcome!” The gate cranked open. “Just follow the lane. You can’t miss it.”
Aiden did as she said, cautiously making his way down the rough and bumpy track the gate revealed. Trees crowded the sun-dappled path, and more than once his wheels thudded into a pothole hidden under the carpet of pine needles. Through the branches, he could make out flashes of the canyon wall and wondered if a wrong turn would send him plummeting into nothingness. He was starting to wonder if maybe he had missed it when the road opened suddenly, revealing a small graveled parking place adjoining a long, low house. It wasn’t what Aiden expected. It was less conservative mansion and more modernist bungalow, all glass, stone, and long, boxy angles. This seemed to be the top, with the rest cantilevered down the canyon slope. Aiden parked, making out a few other buildings through the trees: stables maybe, or a workshop. Aiden had his financial disclosures, but seeing it in person made it clear Orson Jensen had done well for himself.
A large Labrador bounded round the side of the house as Aiden got his bags out of the trunk, jumping excitedly at his legs.
“Hello!” he exclaimed, rubbing her head. He liked big dogs, but it seemed unfair to have one himself with his schedule and his apartment.
“Lucy!” a woman exclaimed, the same voice he’d heard on the intercom.
Sariah Jensen was coming out of the house, calling the dog. She was older than she’d been in the last photo Aiden had of her, her nineties helmet hair replaced by an artsy gray bob. She was a seminotable painter, in Utah at least, somewhere between a dedicated hobbyist and a professional. Aiden had read reviews of well-received shows she’d put on in Provo and Park City. Wearing a Navajo-print cardigan and old, paint-spattered slacks, she didn’t fit his stereotype of a twinset-and-pearls Republican wife. If anything, she had an air of Bohemian glamor. She smiled and waved.
“Aiden?” Lucy the Labrador launched herself energetically at his crotch as he tried to wave back. “Lucy! Stop that!”
“She’s lovely,” he said, managing to corral the excited canine.
“Thank you. She gets very excited when we have visitors. We used to have an Ethel too, but she passed last year.” She shook Aiden’s hand, her grip firm and warm. “Sariah Jensen.”
“Glad to meet you, Mrs. Jensen.”
“Sariah, please,” she said. “How was the drive?”
“Great, thanks.”
“When did you leave Salt Lake?”
“Around lunchtime.”
“You made good time then,” she said. “Come in, please. My husband’s out checking some fences with the boys, but they’ll be back.” She took one of Aiden’s bags and shooed off his attempts to stop her. She had an air of warm practicality, and it wasn’t hard to imagine her as the rancher’s wife in another era, tending house and taming horses.
“I was worried about the snow last week. I thought you might have a hard time getting up here,” she said as she led him into the house. The dog’s claws clacked on the polished timber floor as the entrance hall opened into an impressive living room, large picture windows looking down on the red rocks of the canyon and the green valley below. Aiden glanced up at a large chandelier fashioned from crossed antlers.
“You have a beautiful home.”
“Thank you,” she said, following his gaze. “I think that’s about thirty years’ worth of deer up there. I’m not much of a hunter, but it was my father-in-law’s pride and joy.”
Aiden reconsidered the light fixture. Deer holocaust.
“How long have you been here?” he asked.
“Jensens have been here since pioneer days, but Orson’s father built this particular house when Orson was a child.”
“It’s not what I expected,” he said, taking in the dramatic architecture.
She smiled conspiratorially. “I’ve always liked that about it.”
She led him into the kitchen, down a well-buffed wooden step. It was the kind of house where everything was on a slightly different level. The kitchen looked out on the canyon and a deck with the furniture under covers, old snow persisting in the shaded hollows.
“I’m afraid we don’t have coffee or tea, but I just made some lemonade.”
“Lemonade would be great, thanks.”
She fetched it from the refrigerator and poured. “I hope someone warned you.”
“They did,” Aiden admitted.
She laughed. “It’s usually what people know about us. No beer. No coffee. There’s a little more to us than that!”
A new voice interrupted, gravelly and commanding. Orson Jensen stood in the doorway, hanging up his snow jacket. “A lot more I hope!” He stepped in as Aiden stood up off his stool, and kissed his wife on the cheek before turning to the newcomer. “You must be Aiden.”
Aiden offered his hand. “Pleased to meet you, Governor.”
“Please, here I’m just Orson,” the older man said, with such a firm, politician’s handshake and winning smile that Aiden couldn’t help but mentally append “and I approve this message.”
Chapter Five
ORSON JENSEN was exactly the man his photographs made him out to be: rugged and broad shouldered, snowy hair divided with an authoritative part and cemented into place. He wore a hunter’s jacket and a thick winter flannel, and his commanding presence was wrapped around him just as tight, reminding Aiden of a deacon or small-town sheriff. He was one of those people who immediately inspired calm confidence, and it was easy to imagine him giving a powerful speech on the Senate floor or negotiating with foreign leaders. In politics, imagery was half the battle.
Two younger men had followed him into the kitchen, their fair hair marking them as junior Jensens. Orson introduced them. “Aiden, these are our sons, Brayden and Dallin.”
“Pleased to meet you,” Aiden said, recalling the names from the old family profiles he’d read for his research, though the faces in front of him were a quarter century older. Brayden was the eldest, about forty, with his father’s rugged looks and a footballer’s thick frame going to seed. Dallin was younger, and more like his mother in the face, though not as warm in disposition or body language.
“’Sup man,” Brayden said, shaking his hand.
Dallin spared Aiden a begrudging nod, and Aiden could only assume his pissy attitude came from the cosmic misfortune of being named “Dallin” in the first place.
“Where do you want this stuff, Mom?” the scowling son asked impatiently, as if Aiden had rudely interrupted an ongoing conversation. They were carrying in groceries.
“Just here,” Sariah said, clearing space on the already crowded island. She seemed to be in the middle of preparing dinner. “We’re having the whole family tonight, Aiden. You’ll meet everybody,” she promised, with an air of threat. Aiden smiled politely, thinking there were few things more awkward than someone else’s family gathering. But that was what he was here for: to see the Jensens up close, like the LDS Waltons. The crates
of groceries seemed to keep coming, overflowing with meat, vegetables, chips, and a crushing absence of alcohol.
“Looks like you’re feeding an army,” Aiden said.
Sariah smiled in the way someone might smile if you complimented their collection of glassware or figurines and was gearing up to tell you all about them. Aiden recalled the woman he’d heard on the radio driving in talking about her ten children. The Jensens only had five, stretched out over a twenty-year period whenever, Aiden imagined, Orson’s political career allowed.
“Well, it’s Orson and me. Brayden. Brayden’s wife, Ayla, and their kids. Dallin and Hannah, and their two boys. Our daughter Stephanie, and her husband. Stephanie’s expecting now. Our other daughter Kayleigh’s coming in from BYU. And Hunter, our middle son, drives down from Hill Air Force Base as soon as his leave starts. What’s that?”
“Sixteen,” Orson supplied, “not counting the unborn. Aiden makes seventeen.”
Aiden hoped he wasn’t expected to remember all these people.
“Aunt Lynn said they’d come by too,” Brayden said.
“Well that’s another six,” Sariah said. “Boys, you’d better get started on the grill. Orson, I put Aiden in Hunter’s room. Can you show him?”
“Right this way, Aiden,” Orson said, taking Aiden’s larger bag. He led Aiden back out into the living room and into the other wing of the house. The polished wood and dramatic views reminded Aiden of a ski chalet, or a Mad Men shooting location, but he couldn’t deny it was a handsome place.
Orson smiled apologetically. “We’re a big tribe. We’re throwing you in the deep end having everyone over at once.”
“I come from a big family too,” Aiden said.
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