The explosion transformed him from lecturer to observer. Speaking was difficult for him, because of the constant pain but also because his throat was burned. So he watched, he listened. He lay, hour after hour, day after day, his eyes alert, his mouth shut.
爆炸将他从演讲者变成了观察者。因为持续疼痛，再加上喉咙被烧伤，说话对他来说异常困难，所以他只用眼睛看，用耳朵听。他躺在那里，紧闭嘴巴，睁大双眼，一个小时又一个小时，一天又一天。
But mixed in with the sadness, I also felt hope. Dad had always been a hard man — a man who knew the truth on every subject and wasn’t interested in what anybody else had to say. We listened to him, never the other way around: when he was not speaking, he required silence.
但在悲伤的同时，我也感受到希望。爸爸一直是强势的人——一个自以为洞悉一切问题的真相，对别人说什么毫无兴趣的人。总是我们听他说话，从来没有相反的情况；要是他不说话，就要求大家保持沉默。
Dad didn’t leave his bed for two months unless one of my brothers was carrying him. He peed in a bottle, and the enemas continued. Even after it became clear that he would live, we had no idea what kind of life it would be. All we could do was wait, and soon it felt as though everything we did was just another form of waiting — waiting to feed him, waiting to change his bandages. Waiting to see how much of our father would grow back.
爸爸两个月没下床，除非某个哥哥把他抱下来。他在一个瓶子里撒尿，灌肠还在继续。即使确定了他没有生命危险，我们也不知道他以后能否生活自理。我们只能等待，很快便感受到似乎我们所做的一切只是另一种形式的等待——等着喂他吃饭，等着给他换绷带，等着看我们的父亲能恢复成什么样。
It was difficult to imagine a man like Dad — proud, strong, physical — permanently impaired. I wondered how he would adjust if Mother were forever cutting his food for him; if he could live a happy life if he wasn’t able to grasp a hammer. So much had been lost.
很难想象像爸爸一样骄傲、坚强、健壮的人受到永久损伤。我想知道，假如以后一直靠母亲给他切食物，他会如何适应；假如连锤子都拿不了，他是否还能开心地生活。失去的太多了。
It felt like a new beginning.
感觉是一个全新的开端。
Within a few weeks, my father — who years earlier had not been able to guess my age within half a decade — knew about my classes, my boyfriend, my summer job. I hadn’t told him any of it, but he’d listened to the chatter between me and Audrey as we changed his bandages, and he’d remembered.
在几个星期内，我的父亲——几年前连我的年龄都会猜错五岁以上的父亲——了解了我的课程、我的男朋友以及我的暑期兼职工作。我什么都没告诉他，但他在我们给他换绷带时，听着我和奥黛丽的聊天，记在了心里。
“I’d like to hear more about them classes,” he rasped one morning near the end of the summer. “It sounds real interesting.”
“我想听你多聊聊你上的课，”夏末的一天早晨，他粗声粗气地说，“听上去真有意思。”
Dad was still bedridden when Shawn and Emily announced their engagement. It was suppertime, and the family was gathered around the kitchen table, when Shawn said he guessed he’d marry Emily after all. There was silence while forks scraped plates. Mother asked if he was serious. He said he wasn’t, that he figured he’d find somebody better before he actually had to go through with it. Emily sat next to him, wearing a warped smile.
肖恩和埃米莉宣布订婚的消息时，爸爸还在卧床。当时全家人正围坐在餐桌旁吃晚饭，肖恩突然说他想还是和埃米莉结婚算了。除了叉子碰到盘子的声音，周围一片安静。母亲问他是不是认真的。他说不是，他觉得在不得不经历这件事前自己还能找到更好的人。埃米莉就坐在他旁边，脸上挂着一丝苦笑。
I didn’t sleep that night. I kept checking the bolt on the door. The present seemed vulnerable to the past, as if it might be overwhelmed by it, as if I might blink, and when my eyes opened I would be fifteen.
那天晚上我没睡，不停地检查门上的插销。过去的影响挥之不去，仿佛随时可以推翻现在的一切，仿佛一眨眼，睁开眼睛时，我又会回到十五岁。
We built a fire and sang campfire songs. We played cards. Then we went to our tents. I lay awake in the dark next to Emily, listening to the crickets. I was trying to imagine how to begin the conversation — how to tell her she shouldn’t marry my brother — when she spoke. “I want to talk to you about Shawn,” she said. “I know he’s got some problems.”
我们生了火，围着篝火唱歌。我们还打了牌。之后我们钻进帐篷。黑暗中我醒着，躺在埃米莉身边，听着蟋蟀的叫声。我正在想该如何打开话匣——该如何告诉她不该嫁给我哥哥——这时她开口了。“我想和你谈谈肖恩，”她说，“我知道他有些问题。”
The next morning Shawn said he and Emily were planning a twenty-mile horse ride to Bloomington Lake. I surprised both of us by saying I wanted to go. I felt anxious when I imagined all those hours in the wilderness with Shawn, but I pushed the anxiety aside. There was something I had to do.
第二天早上肖恩表示，他和埃米莉计划骑马五十英里到布卢明顿湖去。我说我也想去，说出这话让我俩都吃了一惊。想着要和肖恩一起在野外度过那么长时间，我倍感焦虑，但我把焦虑放置一旁。有一件事我必须要做。
Fifty miles feels like five hundred on a horse, particularly if your body is more accustomed to a chair than a saddle. When we arrived at the lake, Shawn and Emily slipped nimbly off their horses and began to make camp; it was all I could do to unhitch Apollo’s saddle and ease myself onto a fallen tree. I watched Emily set up the tent we were to share. She was tall and unthinkably slight, with long, straight hair so blond it was nearly silver.
骑马走五十英里漫长得像是走了五百英里，特别是如果你的身体习惯了坐椅子而不是骑马鞍，感觉更是如此。当我们抵达湖边，肖恩和埃米莉敏捷地下了马，开始扎帐篷；我帮不上什么忙，便解开阿波罗的马鞍，闲坐在一棵卧倒的树上。我看着埃米莉搭起我俩共用的帐篷。她又高又瘦，有一头又长又直的金发，金得近乎银色。
“He didn’t help me.” I wanted to say more, to explain to Emily what the bishop had explained to me. But they were his words, not mine. I had no words. I had come fifty miles to speak, and was mute.
“他没有帮我。”我想多说几句，向埃米莉解释主教对我说过的话。但那是他的话，不是我的。我无话可说。我走了五十英里来告诉她这番话，却成了哑巴。
She sat up. I could see the outline of her long ponytail in the dark. “He said he’ll hurt me,” she said. “I know it’s because of Satan. But sometimes I’m scared of him, I’m scared of what he’ll do.”
她坐了起来。黑暗中我能看见她长长的马尾辫的轮廓。“他说他会伤害我，”她说，“我知道这是因为撒旦。但有时我怕他，我害怕他会做出什么。”
“He’s a spiritual man,” Emily said. “God has given him a special calling. To help people. He told me how he helped Sadie. And how he helped you.”
“他是一个有灵性的人，”埃米莉说，“上帝赐予他一项特殊的使命，让他帮助别人。他告诉我他如何帮助了赛迪，又如何帮助了你。”
“He does,” I said.
“他的确有。”我说。
“The devil tempts him more than other men,” Emily said. “Because of his gifts, because he’s a threat to Satan. That’s why he has problems. Because of his righteousness.”
“他承受着比别人更多的魔鬼的诱惑，”埃米莉说，“因为他的天赋，因为他是撒旦的威胁。这就是他有问题的原因。因为他的正义。”
I stared into the darkness, searching it for her face, trying to understand what power my brother had over her. He’d had that power over me, I knew. He had some of it still. I was neither under his spell, nor free of it.
我凝视着黑暗，搜寻她的脸庞，试图理解哥哥对她施加的力量。我知道，他曾用那种力量控制过我，现在还残留一些影响。我既没有被他的魔咒掌控，也没有完全摆脱。
I told her she shouldn’t marry someone who scares her, that no one should, but the words left my lips stillborn. I believed them, but I didn’t understand them well enough to make them live.
我告诉她，她不应该嫁给一个让她害怕的人，谁都不该这么做，但这句话从我嘴里说出来毫无说服力。我相信这些话，但我不太理解它们的意思，不能让它们变得鲜活。
I returned to BYU a few days before the fall semester. I drove directly to Nick’s apartment. We’d hardly spoken. Whenever he called, I always seemed to be needed somewhere to change a bandage or make salve. Nick knew my father had been burned, but he didn’t know the severity of it. I’d withheld more information than I’d given, never saying that there had been an explosion, or that when I “visited” my father it wasn’t in a hospital but in our living room. I hadn’t told Nick about his heart stopping. I hadn’t described the gnarled hands, or the enemas, or the pounds of liquefied tissue we’d scraped off his body.
秋季学期开学的前几天，我回到了杨百翰大学。我直奔尼克的公寓。我们几乎没怎么交谈过。他打电话给我时，我不是要去换绷带，就是要去做药膏。尼克知道我父亲烧伤了，但他不知道烧伤有多严重。我隐瞒的信息比我提供的要多，我从未说过发生了爆炸，也从未提起我“探望”父亲不是去医院，而是在我们家的起居室。我没有告诉尼克，父亲的心脏曾停止跳动。我也没有向他描述父亲那扭曲的双手、灌肠，以及我们从他身上刮下来几磅坏死的液化组织。
“He’s a spiritual man,” she said again. Then she slipped into her sleeping bag, and I knew the conversation was over.
“他是个有灵性的人。”她又说了一遍，然后钻进睡袋。我知道谈话结束了。
I knocked and Nick opened the door. He seemed surprised to see me. “How’s your dad?” he asked after I’d joined him on the sofa.
我敲门，尼克开了门。见到我他似乎很惊讶。“你爸爸怎么样了？”我和他坐在沙发上后，他问。
In retrospect, this was probably the most important moment of our friendship, the moment I could have done one thing, the better thing, and I did something else. It was the first time I’d seen Nick since the explosion. I might have told him everything right then: that my family didn’t believe in modern medicine; that we were treating the burn at home with salves and homeopathy; that it had been terrifying, worse than terrifying; that for as long as I lived I would never forget the smell of charred flesh. I could have told him all that, could have surrendered the weight, let the relationship carry it and grow stronger. Instead I kept the burden for myself, and my friendship with Nick, already anemic, underfed and underused, dwindled in obsolescence.
回想起来，这可能是影响我们之间感情的最重要的时刻，那一刻我本可以做一件事，一件更好的事，而我却没有那么做。这是爆炸后我第一次见到尼克。也许当时我该把一切都告诉他：我的家人不相信现代医学；我们在家用药膏和顺势疗法治疗烧伤；事故太可怕了，比可怕更糟糕；这一辈子我永远不会忘记烧焦的肉的味道。我本可以告诉他这一切，本可以卸下重担，让我们的关系承载它，变得更强大。可是我没有，我把这个担子留给了自己。我和尼克的感情已经贫血、营养不良、沟通不足，越来越岌岌可危。
I believed I could repair the damage — that now I was back, this would be my life, and it wouldn’t matter that Nick understood nothing of Buck’s Peak. But the peak refused to give me up. It clung to me. The black craters in my father’s chest often materialized on chalkboards, and I saw the sagging cavity of his mouth on the pages of my textbooks. This remembered world was somehow more vivid than the physical world I inhabited, and I phased between them. Nick would take my hand, and for a moment I would be there with him, feeling the surprise of his skin on mine. But when I looked at our joined fingers, something would shift so that the hand was not Nick’s. It was bloody and clawed, not a hand at all.
我相信我能修复这个裂痕——现在我回来了，这才是我的生活，即使尼克对巴克峰一无所知，那也没关系。但是巴克峰不肯放过我，将我紧紧攫住。黑板上经常出现父亲胸部烧黑的伤口，翻开课本的书页时，我会看到他下垂的口腔。记忆中的那个世界在某种程度上比我实际生活的世界更鲜活，我在两者之间穿梭游走。尼克会拉着我的手，有那么一刻，我与他在一起，感受他的肌肤与我的相碰带来的惊讶。但当我看着我们相扣的手指时，画面变了，那只手不是尼克的了。根本不是手，而是血淋淋的爪子。
When I slept, I gave myself wholly to the peak. I dreamed of Luke, of his eyes rolling back in his head. I dreamed of Dad, of the slow rattle in his lungs. I dreamed of Shawn, of the moment my wrist had cracked in the parking lot. I dreamed of myself, limping beside him, laughing that high, horrible cackle. But in my dreams I had long, silvery hair.
睡觉时，我将自己完全交由巴克峰处置。我梦见卢克，梦见他的眼珠后翻。我梦见爸爸，梦见他肺部缓缓呼吸的杂音。我梦见肖恩，梦见我的手腕在停车场被折断的那一刻。我梦见自己，一瘸一拐地跟在他身边，高声发出尖利可怕的大笑。但梦中的我长着一头长长的银发。
The wedding was in September.
婚礼在九月举行。
When Emily said “I do,” the vitality left me. I again became a spirit, and drifted back to BYU. I stared at the Rockies from my bedroom window and was struck by how implausible they seemed. Like paintings.
当埃米莉说“我愿意”时，我变得浑身无力。我又像一个幽灵般，回到了杨百翰大学。从我的卧室窗户向落基山脉望去，我惊讶地发现它们看上去是那么不真实，如画一般。
A week after the wedding I broke up with Nick — callously, I’m ashamed to say. I never told him of my life before, never sketched for him the world that had invaded and obliterated the one he and I had shared. I could have explained. I could have said, “That place has a hold on me, which I may never break.” That would have got to the heart of it. Instead I sank through time. It was too late to confide in Nick, to take him with me wherever I was going. So I said goodbye.
婚礼后的一个星期，我狠心地与尼克分了手。说来惭愧。我从未与他谈过我之前的生活，从未向他描绘过那个入侵并毁灭我们共同的生活的世界。我本可以解释。我本可以说：“那地方紧抓着我不放，我可能永远也无法断绝与它的联系。”这本将触及问题的核心。然而，我却沉湎于过去。现在再对尼克吐露心事，与他携手走向未来已经太迟。于是我只能说再见。
I arrived at the church full of anxious energy, as though I’d been sent through time from some disastrous future to this moment, when my actions still had weight and my thoughts, consequences. I didn’t know what I’d been sent to do, so I wrung my hands and chewed my cheeks, waiting for the crucial moment. Five minutes before the ceremony, I vomited in the women’s bathroom.
我满怀焦虑地来到教堂，仿佛从充满灾难的未来被送回此刻。这一刻，我的行动仍然有分量，我的想法依然重要。我不知道被派来做什么，所以我绞动双手，咬紧牙关，等待关键时刻的到来。婚礼前五分钟，我在女卫生间吐了。
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