The Atomic Weight of Love (34 page)

CHRISTMAS WAS QUIET, AS
was New Year’s. Alden took off for a few days, spent the time in his chair, reading and smoking. On a couple of occasions, he got up from the table during our evening meal and ran to the bathroom. I attributed his gastric distress to the rich holiday food.

I listened to Nat King Cole, baked cookies, put on a midi-length denim skirt, and drove the cookies to El Mirador, a state-run facility for the elderly in the valley north of Española. I hung the stockings I’d sewn years earlier—made of red, white and green felt, our names spelled out, faded gold sequins now popping free of exhausted glue and dotting the floor in front of the fireplace.

And I thought about Clay—wondered if he went into the Montana woods and cut a fir tree for his parents’ home, if his mother baked, what he told his parents of his life in New Mexico, if away from me he’d reevaluated his love. I was certain I’d lose Clay next August or September, when his internship ended and he headed back to Berkeley. Or would I lose him sooner?

I put off decision-making, thinking there was, as yet, no decision to be made other than what to make for dinner, what themes I’d choose when my poetry class began in a few weeks.

I USED THE KEY
Clay had given me, started a pot of coffee, and unwrapped the tinfoil from one of my homemade fruitcakes. Despite the cold, I left the front door cracked open so that Jasper could keep a lookout. I was nervous and thrilled, happy and frightened. I wore my new wool jumper in forest green, a beige turtleneck sweater, and chunky Frye boots with a two-inch heel. I’d pulled the sides of my hair back into a barrette, and I’d dabbed Maja perfume behind my ears. Alden was at a planning meeting for the university faculty, so I only had a three-hour break.

I heard his truck door slam, opened the screen door so that Jasper could race to him, and then stood in the doorway, taking in the sight of Clay, his backpack slung over one shoulder, a heavy Irish cabled sweater all that stood between him and winter.

“God,” he said, when we finally separated and looked at each other.

“Your hair,” I said, touching his short locks. “It’s curly!” He’d grown a beard as if to compensate for the loss of head hair, and his beard grew in with red curls nestled amongst the blond. “I like it,” I said, grinning. “You look wonderful.”

“I decided it was time to let go of some things,” he said, stroking my hair.

I pointed at my temples and turned my profile to him. “Do you see?”

“What?”

“Gray.”

He kissed the few gray hairs I identified, and we laughed when Jasper squeezed in between us.

“So, first,” he said, “your crows. Are they really gone?”

“Completely.”

“What will you do?”

“For now, I think I’ll keep trying to write poetry. Keep drawing, painting.”

“Wow.”

“I know. I’m surprised, too.” I thought a moment and then said, “That’s not right. I’m not surprised. In a way, for years I’ve been drifting away from science, into poetry and art. Maybe that part of me was always there, just biding its time while science held the reins . . .” I petered out, then said: “Maybe the birds left me at the right time.” As soon as I said it, I knew it was true.

“You know what they say about adaptation, right?” Clay gripped my shoulder. “That IQ is actually a measurement of adaptability—the more adaptable, the higher the IQ.”

“So we’re both adapting. You, in the facial hair category, me in the realm of literature and art.”

“Thanks a lot,” he said, poking me in the ribs. “Such a compliment.
Laudatory
,” he said drawing out the first syllable.

I laughed, then sipped my coffee and lay back on the cushions. I felt I’d found sanctuary, that everything would be all right. He’d come back to me.

“How was it?” I asked. “With your family, I mean.”

“Actually, it felt good. It made my parents so happy to see me, especially for more than a couple of days.” He used his thumb and index finger to move the curls of his beard away from his mouth. “Mom cooked, and Dad and I split a mountain or two of firewood.”

“And your sleep? Any nightmares?”

“Some, but they were quiet, I think. But, Meridian, you know we didn’t talk about any of it. The war. Talking about it is not how my family does things.”

“It’s not a topic people know how to talk about,” I said, realizing my coffee had grown cold.

Clay took a bite of the fruitcake and grimaced.

“What?” I asked, propping myself up on my elbows.

“I can’t decide what I’ve missed more,” he smiled. “Making love with you, or your cooking.”

“Asshole!”

“Let’s go, Meridian. I need you.”

The pieces of my world clicked audibly into place, the long winter darkness and miasma of death that had consumed me surrendered, and I thought:
Now I know
why loons call only in the summer
.

I STOOD IN LINE,
waiting to pick up a refill of Alden’s blood pressure medicine. Ahead of me, I overheard Lisa Morrison tell the pharmacist she needed cough medicine for her daughter.

I felt a light touch on my forearm and turned to see Clay standing beside me in his faded jeans and turtleneck sweater. Lisa glanced at Clay; I saw her eyes widen briefly, her nostrils flare as if she needed extra oxygen.

“What’s happening?” Clay asked.

“Picking up a prescription,” I said, my voice as matter of fact as I could make it.

“Well,” he said and then touched his fingertips to my waist, an intimate gesture that quickly registered in Lisa’s expression. I looked away from her, and Clay added, “Be seeing you.”

“Take care,” I said, wanting to disappear.

“WHAT WAS THAT?” I
asked Clay over the phone.

“What?”

“At the drugstore.”

“Saying hello?”

“Touching me.”

“I didn’t touch you.”

“You did. You put your hand to my waist.”

“Well, it was automatic. And what’s the big deal?”

“The big deal?”

“Yeah. What’s your problem?”

“This is my community, Clay. You can’t expose me that way.”

“You need to mellow out.”

“I’m hanging up.”

“Jesus, Meridian.”

“Don’t do that again. Don’t mark your territory, assert your rights in public that way again.”

“You think that was what it was about? I can’t be friendly? People can’t know that you even know me?”

“Lisa Morrison saw you. What if word gets back to Alden?”

“I got no problem with that.”

“Well, I do. This is my life. It’s my risk to take—not yours. You don’t get to decide for me.”

“OK.”

“All right.”

“I love it when you get all riled up.”

“I’m hanging up.”

“Promises, promises.”

I hung up.

I READ MY POEM
“Recipe for Crushed Hope” to the women’s discussion group:

Take one Naïve Girl.

Bring to room temperature in the Big City.

Add three cups Academia.

Sift in one cup Encouragement.

Fold in two drops Love.

Sprinkle with one teaspoon Adoration.

Mix thoroughly.

Spoon carefully into greased Pan of Matrimony.

Bake in Desert Heat for 25 years.

Test doneness with Careless Toothpick.

Let cool on Wire Rack of Inertia.

Serve with generous dollops of Benign Neglect.

When I finished, I saw sympathy in Barbara’s face, confusion in Judy’s. Emma leaned over and kissed my cheek. Margo Whiting pulled a tissue from her purse and blew her nose.

“Well, I’m just going to say it,” Betty Van Hessel said. “Meri, you just made me look in the mirror, and I don’t like what I see.”

“Ditto,” Marge said.

“I don’t get it,” Judy said. “Will somebody please explain it to me?”

Emma burst into laughter, and then, one by one, we all joined her—even Judy.

“Aw hell,” I said, wiping my eyes and grinning at my friends.

“Misery loves company!” Betty shouted. “Let’s break out the mimosas.”

“I still don’t get it,” Judy said.

“I DON’T WANT TO
nag.” We were lying on Clay’s mattress in a haze of post-coital bliss. Our affair was ten months old, and yet I would still nearly tap-dance my feet with impatience to see him.

“Nag?” I asked.

“I want to know your thoughts. What are you thinking, Meridian?”

“About?”

“Us.”

“More than I can say.”

“Well, then let me be more specific.” He turned my head so that I faced him rather than the cracks in the plaster of his ceiling. “About coming with me to Berkeley.”

I took a deep breath, let it out slowly. “It’s a dream.”

“Meaning?”

“Dreams can come true.” His face lit up. “But not yet, not yet,” I said, stroking his eager cheek. “Although I feel I have less and less reason to stay—now, not even my crows.” I ran my index finger over his lips. “I have to find the strength to leave a fading man.”

We lay there, looking at each other. I was afraid—contemplating the ramifications of leaving Alden, how it might change my definition of myself, were I to abandon the man who had, for most of my life, held my hand and set my course.

IN THE MIDDLE OF
breakfast, Alden rushed to the bathroom. Jasper pushed his nose as far beneath the door as possible, whining.

It had begun happening more often—Alden’s having to leave the table during a meal or ensconcing himself in the bathroom after a meal. I could not use onions in anything—they produced excessive gas, diarrhea. He could not eat much fiber, and so I stuck to white rice, white bread, pastas, and left out broccoli or salads. Spices made him ill, so I quit making Mexican food.

I knocked on the bathroom door.

“Don’t come in,” he said, a tinge of panic to his voice. “Finish your breakfast.”

I stood there, silently tracing the grain of the wooden door with my thumb.

“Meri, just go.”

“You need help.”

“Just go.”

“Go see Dr. Philips. Please.”

“Go away.”

“I’m going.”

“Good.”

THE WEEK-LONG PROTESTS
IN
Washington, D.C., by the Vietnam Veterans Against the War took place in April of 1971. There was Clay, front and center, on our new color television. He’d told me he’d be gone for a week, but he’d kept his destination, its purpose, a secret. I watched him march alongside Gold Star mothers, shook my head when the government incomprehensibly locked the gates of Arlington Cemetery, kept the women from laying wreaths on their sons’ graves. Listening to John Kerry’s testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, I heard
rape
and
telephone wire taped to genitals
. And then, on Friday, Clay and more than eight hundred other veterans threw their medals and ribbons on the steps of the Capitol.

I left the living room in tears, hiding from Alden in the bathroom until I was certain the news was over. The courage of Clay’s convictions—that’s what I saw when I watched Clay amongst the other veterans. But I worried for his job, his future. He’d probably just lost any chance at a security clearance; he’d be drummed out of the Lab. He’d risked so much to say what he felt needed to be said and to be the person he wanted to be. How could I not match him? How could I not rise to the challenge?

I LEFT A NOTE
on Clay’s kitchen counter.

April 30, 1971

Oh, Clay.
I saw you
.

Do you know what H. L. Mencken said? He said that while it’s noble to die for an idea, it would be much more noble if men died for ideas that were true.

I’ve decided.
I will come with you to Berkeley
.

Yours—Meridian

“HOW ARE YOU GOING
to tell Alden?”

“I don’t know.”

“When will you tell Alden?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

Gliding along in Emma’s new, plush, living-room-sized Cadillac, we were returning from a day in Albuquerque. Each month, I’d been removing twenty to fifty dollars in cash from the checking account and, thus far, Alden had chosen to ignore my little financial rebellion. Emma and I had gone to Paris Shoes at the Winrock Shopping Center, tried on a dozen pairs apiece, taxed the salesman who kept disappearing behind curtains and reappearing laden with boxes, and then each bought two pairs.

I was particularly excited about the bone-colored wedge heels—strappy things that were almost like stilts. I had no idea where I’d wear them—but in California, surely there would be more opportunities. I’d been daydreaming about living near the sea, the kindness of humidity. In my head, I was recreating myself—wearing long cotton skirts that floated gracefully in a breeze off of the bay, colorful tank tops. I loved what I’d seen of the kids’ creative hodgepodge of Victorian lace and pop colors—that form of self-expression that marked Clay’s generation. He promised we’d hunt through San Francisco’s antique stores and used clothing shops, that he’d buy me a feather boa and long strings of pearls.

“Let’s stop at the La Fonda for dinner,” I said as we neared the southern outskirts of Santa Fe.

Emma hit her turn signal. “Will Alden be all right?”

“He can stick a Swanson’s TV dinner in the oven. How about Vince?”

“He can open a can of soup.”

As we climbed the steps of the west entrance to the La Fonda Hotel, a crow called out an evening message from the top of a nearby building. He had an unusual rasp to his voice, and I felt a twinge of desire to be back in the scientist’s role. Inside, an ammonia-tinted cloud of permanent wave solution floated down from the beauty parlor on the second level, and I saw exhausted tourists sitting on the deflated leather cushions of the lobby’s heavy wooden furniture. A few panhandling hippies, one of them using an old black top hat as a collection plate, quietly solicited handouts from the tourists.