The Atomic Weight of Love (40 page)

After she has fitted the books into boxes, and after I have put a benedictory palm to the topmost volume before she tapes each box closed, she lugs the boxes to her car and drives away, waving to me as I stand in the front window, thinking as I always do these days, that it is the last time I will see her.

I smooth the bedspread that still bears the imprint of all of those volumes, and then I lie down for a nap. I think about the sparking of catalysts, about Belle and Alden and Clay. I think about unseen connections, the forces that beckon birds along their migratory routes, that pull people together and split them from each other. I think about Clay’s face when he opens the boxes, the perfection with which he will hold the weight of my history, my love.

Acknowledgments

Writing is an intensely solitary endeavor, but a story isn’t truly heard until many hands have held it. I thank my early feedback readers, in particular Frances S. Koenig, Ruth Pregenzer, Teresa Odle, Alan Church, and Tom Mayer. I am forever grateful to Annie Hwang, who literally pulled Meridian from the mountainside of manuscripts at Folio Literary Management and brought my novel to the attention of Michelle Brower, who provides me with the very best representation and remains a vital, steady source of optimism. I owe many at Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill my thanks, especially my astute and sensitive editor, Andra Miller.

Although many sources helped me to interpret the world of the crows, the most helpful was the riveting
In the Company of Crows and Ravens
, by John M. Marzluff and Tony Angell (Yale University, 2005). I nevertheless own any and all errors, on all matters.

ELIZABETH J. CHURCH practiced law for more than thirty years and has written extensively for legal publications and scientific journals. Her short story “Skin Deep” won first prize in
Literal Latte
’s 2001 fiction contest, and “Lying with Dogs” was published in
Natural Bridge
in 2002. She was born in Los Alamos, New Mexico, and lives there now. (Author photo by Alan A. Church.)

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Published by

Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill

Post Office Box 2225

Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27515-2225

a division of

Workman Publishing

225 Varick Street

New York, New York 10014

© 2016 by Elizabeth J. Church.

All rights reserved.

This is a work of fiction. While, as in all fiction, the literary perceptions and insights are based on experience, all names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

eBook ISBN 978-1-61620-611-6