My professors came into focus, suddenly and sharply; it was as if before the grant I’d been looking at them through a blurred lens. My textbooks began to make sense, and I found myself doing more than the required reading.
教授们突然清晰地进入视野，好像在获得助学金之前，我一直透过模糊的镜头看着他们。我开始看懂课本了，并发现自己读了更多的书，远超必读书目的要求。
I had a thousand dollars in my bank account. It felt strange just to think that, let alone say it. A thousand dollars. Extra. That I did not immediately need. It took weeks for me to come to terms with this fact, but as I did, I began to experience the most powerful advantage of money: the ability to think of things besides money.
我的银行账户里有一千美元。光是想想就觉得奇怪，更别提说出来了。一千美元，额外的，而且是我不迫切需要的。我花了几星期才接受这个事实，这时我才开始体会到金钱的最大优势：考虑金钱以外的事情的能力。
It was in this state that I first heard the term bipolar disorder. I was sitting in Psychology 101 when the professor read the symptoms aloud from the overhead screen: depression, mania, paranoia, euphoria, delusions of grandeur and persecution. I listened with a desperate interest.
正是在此状态下，我第一次听说“双相情感障碍”这个术语。在基础心理学的课堂上，教授从头顶的屏幕上大声读出该病的症状：抑郁、狂躁、偏执、欣快、夸大妄想、被害妄想。我坐在那里饶有兴趣地听着。
This is my father, I wrote in my notes. He’s describing Dad.
我的父亲就是这样，我在笔记上写道，教授描述的正是他的症状。
A few minutes before the bell rang, a student asked what role mental disorders might have played in separatist movements. “I’m thinking of famous conflicts like Waco, Texas, or Ruby Ridge, Idaho,” he said.
下课铃响前的几分钟，一个学生问，精神障碍在分离主义运动中扮演了什么角色。“我想到一些著名的冲突，比如得克萨斯州的韦科事件，以及爱达荷州的鲁比山事件。”他说。
Idaho isn’t famous for many things, so I figured I’d have heard of whatever “Ruby Ridge” was. He’d said it was a conflict. I searched my memory, trying to recall if I’d ever heard the words. There was something familiar in them. Then images appeared in my mind, weak and distorted, as if the transmission were being disrupted at the source. I closed my eyes and the scene became vivid. I was in our house, crouching behind the birchwood cabinets. Mother was kneeling next to me, her breath slow and tired. She licked her lips and said she was thirsty, then before I could stop her she stood and reached for the tap. I felt the tremor of gunfire and heard myself shout. There was a thud as something heavy fell to the floor. I moved her arm aside and gathered up the baby.
爱达荷州并没有很多出名的东西，所以我想我应该听说过“鲁比山”。他说这是一场冲突。我在记忆中努力搜寻，试图忆起自己是否听过这个词。这个名称似曾相识。接着我的脑海里出现了一些画面，微弱且扭曲，好像信号从源头中断了一样。我闭上眼睛，画面变得生动起来。我身在我们的房子里，蜷缩在桦木橱柜的后面。母亲跪在我身边，呼吸缓慢，满是疲惫。她舔了舔嘴唇，说她口渴了，我还没来得及阻止她，她就起身伸手去够水龙头。我感受到枪炮的震动，听到自己的喊叫。砰的一声，有什么东西重重地倒在地板上。我将她的胳膊移到一边，抱起婴儿。
The bell rang. The auditorium emptied. I went to the computer lab. I hesitated for a moment over the keyboard — struck by a premonition that this was information I might regret knowing — then typed “Ruby Ridge” into the browser. According to Wikipedia, Ruby Ridge was the site of a deadly standoff between Randy Weaver and a number of Federal agencies, including the U. S. Marshals Service and the FBI.
下课铃声响了。座席空了。我去了机房，在键盘前犹豫了片刻——预感到自己可能会对将要了解的信息感到后悔——然后在浏览器输入“鲁比山”。根据维基百科，鲁比山是兰迪·韦弗与包括美国联邦执法局和联邦调查局在内的多家联邦机构致命对峙的地点。
The name Randy Weaver was familiar, and even as I read it I heard it falling from my father’s lips. Then the story as it had lived in my imagination for thirteen years began replaying in my mind: the shooting of a boy, then of his father, then of his mother. The Government had murdered the entire family, parents and children, to cover up what they had done.
兰迪·韦弗这个名字很耳熟，读到它时，我听见这个名字从父亲的嘴边滑落。接着，这个在我的想象里存在了十三年的故事又开始在脑海中重演：一个男孩被枪杀，然后是他父亲，之后是他母亲。政府为了掩盖所作所为，杀害了他们全家，包括父母和孩子。
I scrolled past the backstory to the first shooting. Federal agents had surrounded the Weaver cabin. The mission was surveillance only, and the Weavers were unaware of the agents until a dog began to bark. Believing the dog had sensed a wild animal, Randy’s fourteen-year-old son, Sammy, charged into the woods. The agents shot the dog, and Sammy, who was carrying a gun, opened fire. The resulting conflict left two dead: a federal agent and Sammy, who was retreating, running up the hill toward the cabin, when he was shot in the back.
我略过背景故事，滚动到第一次开枪事件。联邦特工包围了韦弗家的小木屋。这次仅仅是监视任务，韦弗一家人并不知情，直到一条狗开始吠叫。兰迪十四岁的儿子萨米以为狗觉察到有野生动物出没，于是冲进了树林。特工们击中了狗，持枪的萨米开了火。由此引发的冲突造成一名联邦特工和萨米两人死亡。萨米当时正在撤退，朝山上的小木屋跑去，背部被子弹击中。
I read on. The next day, Randy Weaver was shot, also in the back, while trying to visit his son’s body. The corpse was in the shed, and Randy was lifting the latch on the door, when a sniper took aim at his spine and missed. His wife, Vicki, moved toward the door to help her husband and again the sniper opened fire. The bullet struck her in the head, killing her instantly as she held their ten-month-old daughter. For nine days the family huddled in the cabin with their mother’s body, until finally negotiators ended the standoff and Randy Weaver was arrested.
我继续阅读。第二天，兰迪·韦弗试图去查看儿子的尸体，也被击中背部。尸体被放在棚子里，兰迪打开门闩时，一名狙击手瞄准了他的脊椎，但没打中。他的妻子薇姬朝门口走去帮助丈夫，狙击手再次开火。子弹击中了她的头部，她当场死亡，怀里还抱着十个月大的女儿。这一家人和母亲的尸体一起在小木屋里躲了九天，直到最后谈判代表结束了这场对峙，兰迪·韦弗被捕。
The Weavers had filed a wrongful death suit for $200 million but settled out of court when the government offered Vicki’s three daughters $1 million each. Randy Weaver was awarded $100,000 and all charges, except two related to court appearances, were dropped. Randy Weaver had been interviewed by major news organizations and had even co-written a book with his daughter. He now made his living speaking at gun shows.
韦弗一家提出赔偿两亿美元的非正常死亡诉讼，但最后政府给薇姬的三个女儿每人一百万美元，他们达成了庭外和解。兰迪·韦弗获得了十万美元赔偿，除两项与出庭有关的指控外，其他所有指控均被撤销。兰迪·韦弗受到各大新闻机构采访，甚至与女儿合作出了一本书。现在他靠在枪支展览上演讲为生。
I read this last line several times before I understood it. Randy Weaver was alive? Did Dad know?
最后这句话我读了好几遍，才恍然大悟。难道兰迪·韦弗还活着？爸爸知道吗？
There was one thing I still didn’t understand: Why had federal agents surrounded Randy Weaver’s cabin in the first place? Why had Randy been targeted? I remembered Dad saying it could just as easy be us. Dad was always saying that one day the Government would come after folks who resisted its brainwashing, who didn’t put their kids in school. For thirteen years, I’d assumed that this was why the Government had come for Randy: to force his children into school.
有一件事我自始至终不明白：为什么联邦特工一开始包围了兰迪·韦弗的小木屋？为什么兰迪会成为攻击目标？我记得爸爸说过我们也可能成为目标。爸爸一直说，总有一天，拒绝被政府洗脑的人、不让孩子上学的人，政府会上门找他们算账。十三年来，我一直以为政府盯上兰迪的原因是：要强迫他的孩子们上学。
I kept reading. The nation had been outraged. Articles had appeared in nearly every major newspaper blasting the government’s callous disregard for life. The Department of Justice had opened an investigation, and the Senate had held hearings. Both had recommended reforms to the rules of engagement, particularly concerning the use of deadly force.
我继续读下去。全国人民为此义愤填膺。几乎各大报纸都刊登了文章，抨击政府对生命的无情漠视。司法部启动了调查，参议院也举行了听证会。双方都建议对交战规则进行改革，特别是在使用致命武力方面。
If it was a cover-up, it was a very bad one. There had been media coverage, official inquiries, oversight. Wasn’t that the measure of a democracy?
如果这是一套掩盖之辞，那编得可够糟糕的。毕竟有媒体报道，还有官方调查和监督。这些不都是民主的举措吗？
For one bitter moment, I thought Dad had lied. Then I remembered the fear on his face, the heavy rattling of his breath, and I felt certain that he’d really believed we were in danger. I reached for some explanation and strange words came to mind, words I’d learned only minutes before: paranoia, mania, delusions of grandeur and persecution. And finally the story made sense — the one on the page, and the one that had lived in me through childhood. Dad must have read about Ruby Ridge or seen it on the news, and somehow as it passed through his feverish brain, it had ceased to be a story about someone else and had become a story about him. If the Government was after Randy Weaver, surely it must also be after Gene Westover, who’d been holding the front line in the war with the Illuminati for years. No longer content to read about the brave deeds of others, he had forged himself a helmet and mounted a nag.
有那么痛苦的一瞬，我认为爸爸说了谎，接着我想起他脸上的恐惧、沉重而急促的呼吸，我确信他真的相信我们身处危险之中。我努力寻求一些解释，几分钟前才学会的奇怪的词语浮现在我的脑海：偏执、狂躁、自我感觉良好、被害妄想。终于，网页上的故事和伴随我童年的故事都说得通了。爸爸一定是在哪里读过或者在新闻上看到过鲁比山事件，不知怎的，经他狂热的大脑一加工，它不再是别人的故事，而是演绎成了他自己的故事。如果政府追捕兰迪·韦弗，那么肯定也盯上了吉恩·韦斯特弗，因为他在与光明会的斗争中一直站在前线。他不再满足于阅读别人的英勇事迹，于是为自己锻造了一顶头盔，骑上了一匹老马。
I returned to the top of the page and read the whole entry again, but this time I didn’t skip the backstory. According to all the sources, including Randy Weaver himself, the conflict had begun when Randy sold two sawed-off shotguns to an undercover agent he’d met at an Aryan Nations gathering. I read this sentence more than once, many times in fact. Then I understood: white supremacy was at the heart of this story, not homeschool. The government, it seemed, had never been in the habit of murdering people for not submitting their children to a public education. This seemed so obvious to me now, it was difficult to understand why I had ever believed anything else.
我返回页面顶部，重新阅读整个条目，但这次没有跳过背景故事。根据所有消息来源，包括兰迪·韦弗自己，冲突始于他将两支枪管锯短的霰弹枪卖给一个他在雅利安国民组织[14]集会上认识的卧底。这句话我读了不止一遍，事实上读了很多遍，才恍然大悟：原来该事件的根本原因是白人至上主义，而不是在家上学。政府似乎从来不会因为不让孩子接受公共教育而杀人。如今这道理对我来说太显而易见了，很难理解为什么我曾经还相信过别的东西。【注：[14]Aryan Nations，美国极右翼白人至上主义、反犹太主义的宗教组织，创立于二十世纪四十年代，有严重的种族歧视。】
I became obsessed with bipolar disorder. We were required to write a research paper for Psychology and I chose it as my subject, then used the paper as an excuse to interrogate every neuroscientist and cognitive specialist at the university. I described Dad’s symptoms, attributing them not to my father but to a fictive uncle. Some of the symptoms fit perfectly; others did not. The professors told me that every case is different.
我开始沉迷于对双相情感障碍的研究。按照要求，我们要为心理学课程写一篇论文，我把躁郁症作为研究对象，然后以写论文为借口，咨询了大学里的每一位神经学家和认知专家。我描述了爸爸的症状，但并没归结于我父亲，而是一个虚构的叔叔。有些症状非常符合该病症；有些则不。教授们告诉我，每个人的情况都不一样。
With all the subtlety of a bulldozer I wrote my paper on the effect bipolar parents have on their children. It was accusative, brutal. I wrote that children of bipolar parents are hit with double risk factors: first, because they are genetically predisposed to mood disorders, and second, because of the stressful environment and poor parenting of parents with such disorders.
在这一系列微妙的推动作用之下，我写了一篇关于双相情感障碍的父母对孩子的影响的论文。我以第三人称的角度进行了无情的批判。我写道，父母患有躁郁症的孩子受到双重风险因素的打击：首先，因为他们在基因上更容易患上情绪障碍；其次，因为充满压力的生活环境和患病父母糟糕的养育方式。
“What you’re describing sounds more like schizophrenia,” one said. “Did your uncle ever get treatment?”
“你的描述听起来更像精神分裂症，”一个教授说，“你叔叔接受过治疗吗？”
“That does complicate things,” he said.
“这确实使事情复杂化了。”他说。
“No,” I said. “He thinks doctors are part of a Government conspiracy.”
“没有，”我说，“他认为医生是政府阴谋的一部分。”
I visited Buck’s Peak the weekend after I submitted my paper. I had been home for less than an hour when Dad and I got into an argument. He said I owed him for the car. He really only mentioned it but I became crazed, hysterical. For the first time in my life I shouted at my father — not about the car, but about the Weavers. I was so suffocated by rage, my words didn’t come out as words but as choking, sputtering sobs. Why are you like this? Why did you terrify us like that? Why did you fight so hard against made-up monsters, but do nothing about the monsters in your own house?
提交论文后的那个周末我回到巴克峰。回家不到一个小时，我和爸爸就争论起来。他说那辆车是我欠他的。这件事他只是随口一提，但让我歇斯底里地发了狂。生平第一次我冲着父亲大喊——不是因为车，而是韦弗家事件。我气得喘不过气来，我的话不是说出来的，而是哽咽抽泣着吐出来的。你为什么会这样？你为什么那样吓唬我们？你为什么那么奋力地和想象出来的怪物作战，却对自己家里的怪物无动于衷？
In class I had been taught about neurotransmitters and their effect on brain chemistry; I understood that disease is not a choice. This knowledge might have made me sympathetic to my father, but it didn’t. I felt only anger. We were the ones who’d paid for it, I thought. Mother. Luke. Shawn. We had been bruised and gashed and concussed, had our legs set on fire and our heads cut open. We had lived in a state of alert, a kind of constant terror, our brains flooding with cortisol because we knew that any of those things might happen at any moment. Because Dad always put faith before safety. Because he believed himself right, and he kept on believing himself right — after the first car crash, after the second, after the bin, the fire, the pallet. And it was us who paid.
课堂上，老师讲授了神经递质及其对脑化学的影响。我明白了疾病不是一种选择。这些知识也许会让我对父亲产生同情，但并没有。我只感到愤怒。我想，我们才是付出代价的人。母亲。卢克。肖恩。我们伤痕累累，瘀青、擦伤、脑震荡、腿着火、脑袋开花。我们一直生活在一种警觉的状态和持续的恐惧之中，我们的大脑充斥着皮质醇，因为我们知道那些事情随时可能发生。因为爸爸总是把信念置于安全之前。因为他相信自己是正确的，在经历了第一次车祸、第二次车祸、垃圾箱疗伤、着火、托盘坠落这些事件后，他仍坚持相信自己是对的。付出代价的是我们。
Dad gaped at me, astonished. His mouth sagged and his hands hung limply at his sides, twitching, as if he wanted to raise them, to do something. I hadn’t seen him look so helpless since he’d crouched next to our wrecked station wagon, watching Mother’s face bulge and distend, unable even to touch her because electrified cables were sending a deadly pulse through the metal.
爸爸目瞪口呆地看着我，很是震惊。他的嘴耷拉着，双手无力地垂在身体两侧，抽搐着，仿佛要抬起它们来做点儿什么。自从那次他蹲在我们失事的旅行车旁，看着母亲肿胀的脸，因为电线在金属上传导致命的脉冲而不能触碰她，我从没见过他如此无助。
When the semester ended, I stayed in Utah. It was the first summer that I didn’t return to Buck’s Peak. I did not speak to my father, not even on the phone. This estrangement was not formalized: I just didn’t feel like seeing him, or hearing his voice, so I didn’t.
学期结束时，我留在了犹他州。这是我第一次暑假没有回巴克峰的家。我不再和父亲说话，甚至没有通过电话。这次并非正式与他疏远：我只是不想见到他，不想听到他的声音，所以我没有回去。
Out of shame or anger, I fled. I drove without stopping back to BYU. My father called a few hours later. I didn’t answer. Screaming at him hadn’t helped; maybe ignoring him would.
出于羞耻和愤怒，我一走了之，一路开车返回杨百翰大学。几个小时后父亲打来电话。我没有接。对他尖叫无济于事；不理他或许管用。
I moved to a new apartment on the other side of town where no one knew me. I wanted a new start. At church my first week, my new bishop greeted me with a warm handshake, then moved on to the next newcomer. I reveled in his disinterest. If I could just pretend to be normal for a little while, maybe it would feel like the truth.
我搬到城市另一边的一套新公寓，那里没人认识我。我想重新开始。去教堂的第一周，新主教热情地与我握手致意，接着去迎接下一个新来的人。我很开心他对我不感兴趣。如果我能在一段时间内假装正常，也许便会觉得自己真的很正常。
I decided to experiment with normality. For nineteen years I’d lived the way my father wanted. Now I would try something else.
我决定尝试过正常人的生活。十九年来，我一直按照父亲的意愿生活，现在我要试试别的活法。
Nick and I were a couple from the beginning. He grabbed my hand the second time we met. When his skin touched mine, I prepared to fight that primal need to push him away, but it never came. It was strange and exciting, and no part of me wanted it to end. I wished I were still in my old congregation, so I could rush to my old bishop and tell him I wasn’t broken anymore.
我和尼克一见钟情。第二次见面时，他牵了我的手。他的皮肤碰到我的皮肤的一刹那，我做好了奋力一搏本能地将他推开的准备，但这种情况并没发生。这令人奇怪又兴奋，我也不想让这个举动结束。真希望我还待在原来的教会，这样我就可以冲到原先的主教面前，告诉他我不再有心理障碍。
It was at church that I met Nick. Nick had square glasses and dark hair, which he gelled and teased into neat spikes. Dad would have scoffed at a man wearing hair gel, which is perhaps why I loved it. I also loved that Nick wouldn’t have known an alternator from a crankshaft. What he did know were books and video games and clothing brands. And words. He had an astonishing vocabulary.
我是在教堂认识尼克的。尼克戴一副方框眼镜，用发胶将乌黑的头发梳得整整齐齐。一个涂发胶的男人会遭到爸爸嘲笑，也许这就是我喜欢他的原因。我也喜欢尼克分不清交流发电机上的曲轴。他倒是对书籍、电子游戏和服装品牌情有独钟。还有单词。他的词汇量惊人。
I overestimated my progress. I was so focused on what was working, I didn’t notice what wasn’t. We’d been together a few months, and I’d spent many evenings with his family, before I ever said a word about mine. I did it without thinking, casually mentioned one of Mother’s oils when Nick said he had an ache in his shoulder. He was intrigued — he’d been waiting for me to bring them up — but I was angry at myself for the slip, and didn’t let it happen again.
我高估了自己的进步。我太专注于取得的成效，而忽视了没有改变的一面。我们已交往了几个月，我跟他的家人一起度过了很多夜晚，却从未提过我的家人。一次尼克说他肩膀疼，我想都没想，便不经意地提起母亲的精油。他很感兴趣——他一直在等我提及家人——但我为自己的口误而生气，之后再也没让这种情况发生过。
“We’re going to the doctor,” he said.
“我们去看医生。”他说。
Another week passed. I quit my internship and began sleeping through the days as well as the nights. One morning, Nick showed up unexpectedly.
又一个星期过去了。我辞掉了实习工作，开始不分昼夜地睡觉。一天早上，尼克突然来了。
At first Nick was amused that I wouldn’t see a doctor, but as the illness progressed his amusement turned to worry, then confusion. I blew him off. “It’s not that serious,” I said. “I’d go if it were serious.”
起初尼克觉得我不肯看医生好笑，但随着病情的恶化，他开始担心，继而感到困惑。我并不理会他的建议。“没那么严重，”我说，“严重了我就去看医生。”
I began to feel poorly toward the end of May. A week passed in which I could hardly drag myself to my job, an internship at a law firm. I slept from early evening until late morning, then yawned through the day. My throat began to ache and my voice dropped, roughening into a deep crackle, as if my vocal cords had turned to sandpaper.
五月底，我开始感觉不舒服。整整一个星期，我几乎打不起精神去律师事务所实习。我早睡晚起，白天还是困得直打呵欠。我的喉咙开始疼，声音低沉下来，变得粗糙沙哑，仿佛我的声带成了砂纸。
I started to say I wouldn’t go, but then I saw his face. He looked as though he had a question but knew there was no point in asking it. The tense line of his mouth, the narrowing of his eyes. This is what distrust looks like, I thought.
我开始说不去，但接着我看到了他的表情。他看上去似乎有个问题想问我，但又知道提出来没有意义。他嘴角紧闭，眯起眼睛。这就是不信任的样子，我想。
Given the choice between seeing an evil socialist doctor, and admitting to my boyfriend that I believed doctors were evil socialists, I chose to see the doctor.
是去看邪恶的医生，还是向男友坦承自己认为医生都是邪恶的？面对这两个选择，我选择看医生。
“Fine,” he said.
“好吧。”他说。
“I’ll go today,” I said. “I promise. But I’d rather go alone.”
“我今天就去，”我说，“我保证。但我想一个人去。”
He left, but now I had another problem. I didn’t know how to go to a doctor. I called a friend from class and asked if she’d drive me. She picked me up an hour later and I watched, perplexed, as she drove right past the hospital a few blocks from my apartment. She took me to a small building north of campus, which she called a “clinic.” I tried to feign nonchalance, act as though I’d done this before, but as we crossed the parking lot I felt as though Mother were watching me.
他走了，但我还有一个困惑。我不知道怎么看医生。我打电话给班上的一个朋友，问她是否愿意开车送我。一个小时后她来接我，我困惑不解地看着她开车经过离我公寓几个街区远的医院。她带我去了校园北边的一栋小房子，她称其为“诊所”。我试图装出若无其事的样子，表现得好像以前来过一样。但当我们穿过停车场时，我感觉母亲的目光在注视着我。
I didn’t know what to say to the receptionist. My friend attributed my silence to my throat and explained my symptoms. We were told to wait. Eventually a nurse led me to a small white room where she weighed me, took my blood pressure, and swabbed my tongue. Sore throats this severe were usually caused by strep bacteria or the mono virus, she said. They would know in a few days.
我不知道该对接诊的护士说什么。朋友以为我不说话是因为喉咙疼，于是替我解释了症状。我们被告知等候。最后，一位护士把我带到一间白色的小房间，给我称了体重，量了血压，用棉签擦了舌头。她说，严重的咽喉肿痛通常是由链球菌或单核细胞病毒引起的，几天后他们就会知道结果。
When the results came back, I drove to the clinic alone. A balding middle-aged doctor gave me the results. “Congratulations,” he said. “You’re positive for strep and mono. Only person I’ve seen in a month to get both.”
结果出来的时候，我一个人开车去了诊所。一位秃顶的中年医生将结果递给我。“恭喜，”他说，“链球菌和单核细胞病毒都呈阳性反应。一个月来，你是我见过的唯一一个同时感染了细菌和病毒的人。”
“Both?” I whispered. “How can I have both?”
“两种都是？”我低声说，“我怎么会两种都感染呢？”
“Very, very bad luck,” he said. “I can give you penicillin for the strep, but there’s not much I can do for the mono. You’ll have to wait it out. Still, once we’ve cleared out the strep, you should feel better.”
“非常非常倒霉，”他说，“我可以给你开点青霉素治疗链球菌，但对于单核细胞病毒我无能为力。你得等它自己痊愈。不过，一旦我们消灭了链球菌，你应该会感觉好一些。”
The doctor asked a nurse to bring some penicillin. “We should start you on the antibiotics right away,” he said. I held the pills in my palm and was reminded of that afternoon when Charles had given me ibuprofen. I thought of Mother, and of the many times she’d told me that antibiotics poison the body, that they cause infertility and birth defects. That the spirit of the Lord cannot dwell in an unclean vessel, and that no vessel is clean when it forsakes God and relies on man. Or maybe Dad had said that last part.
医生让护士拿来一些青霉素。“我们应该马上给你开抗生素。”他说。我手里拿着药片，想起那天下午查尔斯给我服用布洛芬的情景。我想起母亲，想起她多次告诉我，抗生素毒害身体，会导致不孕不育和婴儿先天缺陷。耶和华的精神不能住在不洁的身体里。凡离弃上帝，依赖人类，这样的身体必然是不洁的。也许最后那部分是爸爸说的。
I swallowed the pills. Perhaps it was desperation because I felt so poorly, but I think the reason was more mundane: curiosity. There I was, in the heart of the Medical Establishment, and I wanted to see, at long last, what it was I had always been afraid of. Would my eyes bleed? My tongue fall out? Surely something awful would happen. I needed to know what.
我吞下了药片。也许是因为太难受让我感到绝望，但我猜更多是因为一个再平常不过的理由：好奇。就这样，我来到医疗机构内部，想看看最终我一直以来害怕的事情会不会发生。我的双眼会流血吗？我的舌头会掉下来吗？肯定会有可怕的事情发生。我需要知道是什么。
She began talking rapidly but I didn’t hear much of it, I was so tired. When she seemed to be winding down, I said “I love you” and hung up.
她开始说话，语速很快，但我没听到多少，我太累了。她快说完时，我说了一句“我爱你”，便挂断了电话。
I leaned back into my pillow and fell asleep almost instantly, but before I did I laughed out loud. She hadn’t sent any remedies for the strep or the mono. Only for the penicillin.
我仰靠在枕头上，几乎立刻就睡着了，但入睡前我笑出声来。她没有寄来任何对抗链球菌或单核细胞病毒的药物，只有对付青霉素的。
I returned to my apartment and called Mother. I thought confessing would alleviate my guilt. I told her I’d seen a doctor, and that I had strep and mono. “I’m taking penicillin,” I said. “I just wanted you to know.”
我回到公寓，给母亲打了个电话。我觉得坦白会减轻自己的罪恶感。我告诉她我去看了医生，我感染了链球菌和单核细胞病毒。“我只是想让你知道，”我说，“我正在服用青霉素。”
Two days later a package arrived, express from Idaho. Inside were six bottles of tincture, two vials of essential oil, and a bag of white clay. I recognized the formulas — the oils and tinctures were to fortify the liver and kidneys, and the clay was a foot soak to draw toxins. There was a note from Mother: These herbs will flush the antibiotics from your system. Please use them for as long as you insist on taking the drugs. Love you.
两天后，从爱达荷州寄来一个包裹，里面有六瓶酊剂、两瓶精油和一袋白色黏土。我认出了配方——精油和酊剂用来增强肝脏和肾脏功能，黏土用来泡脚排毒。母亲留了一个便条：这些药草会帮你把体内的抗生素排出。请长期坚持服药。爱你。
I awoke the next morning to my phone ringing. It was Audrey.
第二天早上，电话铃响了，我醒了过来。是奥黛丽打来的。
“It’s Dad,” she said. “If you hurry — leave right now — you can say goodbye.”
“是爸爸，”她说，“如果你现在快点——马上出发的话——你还来得及见他最后一面。”
“There’s been an accident,” she said.
“出事了。”她说。
Her words transported me to another moment, to the last time I’d answered a phone and heard those words instead of a greeting. I thought of that day, and of what Mother had said next. I hoped Audrey was reading from a different script.
她的话让我想起另一个时刻，想起上次接电话的情景，听到的不是问候，也是这句话。我想起了那天，想起了母亲接下来说的话。我希望奥黛丽说的不是一样的内容。
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