The Atomic Weight of Love (21 page)

Authors: Elizabeth J Church

Alden picked me up at the airport in Albuquerque, and on the drive back to Los Alamos I related the details of those busy weeks, the complicated logistics of getting into Mother’s safe deposit box, my discovery there of the booklets full of war stamps I’d sent her for safe keeping when I was in college.

“If the house is in the hands of a qualified realtor, I don’t know why you’re worrying,” Alden said as we at last pulled into the driveway and walked to our front door.

“It’s more than a house or a real estate transaction, Alden. I’m talking about my memories,” I said as he unlocked the front door.

“But this is your home,” he said, stepping inside.

“Of course it is. It’s just that I feel as though I’m giving up my father in a more final way. Giving up Mother forever. Giving up Pennsylvania and all that it has meant to me.”

“You’ve lived in New Mexico for over sixteen years, Meri. You’re not a child anymore.”

“But Pennsylvania’s the place that formed me. And,” I paused, feeling a fist of pain in my chest, “my mother gave me such unadulterated love. I’m losing that.”

“I don’t?”

“Of course you do. I didn’t mean that. But a mother’s love is different, irreplaceable. She comforted me. She loved me fiercely, Alden.”

“I give you comfort. I love you. You have a good home, a good life.”

I set down my purse. “I’m not talking about physical things or solutions to problems like who’s the best realtor and what’s a reasonable sales price. I’m talking about softness, tenderness. Sometimes, all I want for you to do is to hold me. If you’d just—right now—hold me, acknowledge that I’ve lost my mother, that it is a significant, painful loss to me. You don’t have to agree or even understand, Alden. Just listen to me when I try to talk about it. Hear me when I say that I’ve lost a pivotal person in my life.”

“So, you want for me to hold you.”

“Yes. That’s it, Alden. It’s really that simple.”

“Before dinner?” he asked.

A COUPLE OF MONTHS
after Mother’s death, Emma and I drove to Santa Fe for a decadent lunch of French fries, hamburgers, and root beer floats at Bert’s Burger Bowl. In the Santa Fe Book and Stationery Company we went our separate ways, but when we met up at the cash register we discovered that we’d both picked up a copy of Doris Lessing’s
The Golden Notebook
.

“Synchronicity!” Emma smiled.

“Shall we read it together, meet over coffee and discuss it? What do you think?” I asked as we walked along Marcy Street back to her car.

We put our packages in the backseat, and then Emma sat behind the wheel, turned the keys in the ignition. “A book club of two?”

“No,” I said, watching an elderly Indian woman who was stopping cars, holding up a handful of necklaces to sell. “Not a book club. What if we start a decent version of the University Women’s Group?”

“I’m not sure I understand.”

“A discussion group. Of women, for women. We’d talk about things—other than gossip. Things that interest us, inspire or nourish our minds.”

Emma nodded. “And the book is our jumping-off point?”

“I think so. It just came to me. I don’t have all of the angles worked out.” We passed the absurdly bright pink Scottish Rite Temple on Paseo de Peralta. “But definitely more than a book club. Closer to Oppenheimer’s famous Berkeley discussion group—something like that.”

“Good. I like that better. For a minute, I was worried.”

“That we’d have to invite Diane Chamberlain to take notes and humiliate anyone who didn’t measure up?” I laughed and rolled down the window so that I could smell the desert sage.

Later that night, I tried to share my excitement with Alden.

“You’re starting a coffee klatch?” he asked, barely raising his eyes from the book he was reading.

“It’s a discussion group for women. About women’s issues, things that interest us.”

“I thought all that talk about diapers and report cards and Brownie troops bored you to tears.” He set his book in his lap, reached for his pipe.

“Intelligent, thoughtful discussion amongst intelligent, thoughtful women,” I countered.

“A coffee klatch,” he smiled, taunting me.

“Maybe you haven’t heard . . .”

“What?”

“They’re talking about letting us have the vote.”

He smiled again and beckoned me to sit in his lap. I leaned back against his chest, took his hands in mine, and for the twelve millionth time admired their shape. They were perfectly proportioned, his fingers those of a pianist who could run through scales flawlessly.

“I’m just yanking your chain, Meri. It’s a hobby of mine.”

“Don’t I know it.”

I turned and kissed him, holding the kiss and feeling fledgling joy, possibility. It felt good to lie in his lap, to nestle there with his arms about me, contented, peaceful.

I RAN INTO EMMA
on the sidewalk outside of Mesa Public Library. “I’ve called Barbara Malcolm, Judy Nielson, Dawn Hendricks,” I said. “And let me think . . . Betty Van Hessel, Margo Whiting. I don’t want for it to get too big.”

“And they’ll come?” Emma asked.

“When I told them it’s a serious women’s discussion group, that we’ll discuss books, current issues, things that matter to us as women, every single one of them jumped at the opportunity. I mean it—it was wonderful to hear the enthusiasm in their voices.”

“And it’s wonderful to hear the enthusiasm in
your
voice. I’ve never heard you sound this excited. Well, with the exception of when you’re talking about your crows.”

“I was thinking that we could rotate through the group. Each person comes up with a topic, leads the discussion, and we meet once a month. Or maybe every six weeks.” Emma nodded. “Oh, and one more thing,” I added.

“What’s that?”

“I am done with girdles.”

Emma laughed loudly. “Meri!”

“I’ve had it, trying to squeeze into those things.”

“You don’t need one, anyway.”

“For some styles, I do. But I’m not wearing them anymore. I quit.”

“Anything else, oh Woman of Change?”

I tugged at the curls on the top of my head. “See these? They’re going too.”

“You’re getting a crew cut like Alden?”

“I’m going to grow it out. I’m sick to death of permanent waves and bruising my scalp just to be beautiful.”

“Well, well.” Emma shaded her eyes with her hand. “What does Alden have to say about all of this?”

“He minimizes. With humor, but he minimizes.”

“Then show him.”

“I will.”

An Exaltation of Larks

1. Literature celebrates larks’ melodious, extravagant song.

2. “Exaltation,” derived from the Latin exaltare, means to “raise aloft.”

It was Vietnam, finally, that reminded the world of the existence of Los Alamos. With the immediate threat of World War II forgotten, Los Alamos was transfigured. It was no longer the place where extraordinary minds and talents had converged to put an end to war.

Wearing a petal-pink cotton shift, my hair grown out nearly to my shoulders, I came out of the Safeway one early summer afternoon in 1968 to stand with other housewives who were watching a parade of hippie buses traveling down Central Avenue. Scruffy kids emerged carrying signs that called Los Alamos an “atomic proving grounds.” They beat drums and chanted something I couldn’t make out, and then they concluded their protest beside Ashley Pond, where they lay on the grass playing wooden flutes and shaking tambourines.

They either conveniently forgot or determinedly ignored what Los Alamos had accomplished in terms of lives saved—maybe even the lives of the fathers of these self-same hippies. I didn’t mind that they protested, but I did mind their overly simplistic, self-serving analysis. I minded purposeful, nearsighted ignorance.

I wondered what Belle would have had to say about it all—if she would have sat cross-legged with the kids or if she would have yelled back at the protestors, ridiculed their signs and banners.

In the end, I rather think she would have swirled the ice in her cocktail glass thoughtfully and then said: “Thank God it’s not my son dying over there.”

The Los Alamos antiwar protests were sporadic, but hippies and protest marches seemed omnipresent on television. As 1970 arrived, I watched the parade of young men and women, their wild, creative explosion of clothing and hair, and I wondered what it would be like to talk—really talk— with some of them. Could we have a genuine conversation? Or would they dismiss me as someone over thirty and thus irrelevant?

I WAS PERCHED
ON
my favorite observation post, blank pages of my crow journal before me. I watched Withered Foot’s son, a crow with a patch of remarkable white flight feathers near the tip of his left wing. White Wing was trying to win a mate as he dove, circled, hovered, and soared above me. Two females perched in the uppermost boughs of separate ponderosa pines, and both were clearly interested in White Wing. This year he would inherit Withered Foot’s territory and establish his family in that portion of the canyon. Although snows were rare this late in the year, they remained a possibility, and I wanted to see if young, inexperienced crows such as White Wing and his mate could outwit the variability of spring in northern New Mexico.

All at once, the crow community began cawing an alert, signaling the presence of an intruder. I closed my journal and looked about me. Across the canyon, I heard rock falling followed by a distinct, effortful grunt. I moved so that I could see through an opening in the trees, and I focused my binoculars.

A man clung to the vertical outcropping on the opposite side of the canyon. Pebbles loosened as he climbed with bare hands, bare feet. Despite the cool spring temperatures, he wore a sleeveless undershirt, and his dark blond hair, woven into a French braid, hung down the middle of his back.

The crows quieted until more rock fell, and then they again sent out their alert. I kept my breath shallow, held the binoculars steady. The climber was lean, the striations of his muscles pronounced. Over the course of about fifteen minutes, I watched him contemplate each hand- and foothold, the wisest course. At last, he boosted himself onto the top of the ridge. He turned and looked directly at me, and I self-consciously lowered the field glasses. I saw a flash of white teeth, and then he raised a hand and waved. I held up my hand, wiggled my fingertips, and blushed at having been caught.

I had not ever before been so struck by the power of a man’s body, the sheer beauty of an animal in its prime. Was this what the human male’s wing display looked like? Why had I never before taken it in so acutely?

I closed my eyes and felt my leg muscles twitching as if I had been the one scaling cliffs. When I opened my eyes, he was gone.

The entry in my journal bore only the date and time, nothing more: May 11, 1970, 1:15 p.m. There were no crow descriptions, and I made no sketches. I merely sat until the warm sun eased me back into my usual rhythm, until I knew my legs were again strong enough to carry me out of the canyon and safely home.

THAT NIGHT, MY SLEEP
was fragmented. I tried to pretend that it was because of Alden’s snoring, but I knew better. I was forty-six years old, and I’d never felt such a primal stirring in my gut. It was exhilarating. It was frightening.

The next day was a Tuesday, not one of my usual crow days, but I went back anyway. I justified it by thinking that I had to make up for the previous day’s lack of observation and my need to keep on top of White Wing’s mating choice.

He wasn’t there. I tried to focus on White Wing, and for a few minutes at a time I managed. Still, my efforts were inconsistent, haphazard. Finally I removed my windbreaker, took off my ball cap, and tilted my face to the sun. My hair had long ago grown out, and it hung past my shoulders. Most of the time, I kept it bundled into a ponytail to avoid the insistent tangles that bred at the nape of my neck. When I ran errands downtown or walked to the library, I wore skirts, dresses—simple things. Once a year, I convinced Alden to let me splurge on a high-quality Pendleton suit, bought at a store in Santa Fe that carried a good variety of the lovely wools. But when I worked with the crows, I still wore boots, khaki or denim trousers, and a practical blouse.

I leaned back against the rough, vanilla-scented bark of a ponderosa pine and began to doze, knowing that the crows would tell me if he arrived. Minutes later, the crows and I heard him at the same time—the snap of a twig, the crunch of gravel. I turned and could see him making his way down the path to my spot. He began whistling a tune I didn’t know. I heard him laugh in response to the crows’ hoarse calls. I stood, self-consciously removing the rubber band from my hair and loosening it to cover my misshapen ear.

He stopped a few feet above me and smiled. He was wearing faded jeans embroidered with flowers and peace symbols, and I could see a frayed slash across one thigh. I wanted to touch the worn material of his jeans, to feel the exhausted softness in my hands. I also wanted to leap away, like a deer in flight.

“Hi,” he said, simply.

“Hi,” I mirrored.

He took a few careful steps toward me as if he knew I was primed to flee, and then he held out his hand. “Clay Griffin.”

“Meridian Wallace. I mean Whetstone.”

“Having an identity crisis?” His grip was strong. I liked that he didn’t shake my hand as if I were frail or weak.

I laughed. “I don’t know why I said that. It’s Meridian Wallace Whetstone.”

“Quite a mouthful.”

“People call me Meri.”

“May I sit with you for a bit? I don’t want to intrude.”

“No, no, it’s fine.” I shifted my gear to make room for him.

“So, what is it you do out here? I’m assuming the Lab security forces are onto you.”

“Right,” I smiled. “They spy on me, and I spy on the crows.”