Even with her door closed, Lydia could hear it: the click-click of the suitcase latches opening, then a thud as the lid hit the floor. Their family never traveled. Once, when Hannah was still a baby, they’d visited Gettysburg and Philadelphia. Their father had plotted out the whole trip in the road atlas, a chain of places so steeped in Americana that it oozed out everywhere: in the names of the gas stations — Valley Forge Diesel — and in the diner specials when they stopped for lunch — Gettystown Shrimp, William Penn’s Pork Tenderloin. Then, at every restaurant, the waitresses had stared at her father, then at her mother, then at her and Nath and Hannah, and she knew, even as a child, that they’d never come back. Since then, their father had taught summer classes every year, as if — she rightly suspected — to avoid raising the question of family vacations.
即使关着她的房间门，莉迪亚也能听到那些动静，手提箱咔哒开启，然后是盖子碰到地板的敲击声。他们全家从未出门旅行过。有一次，汉娜还是小婴儿的时候，他们去了葛底斯堡和费城。根据一本公路地图，詹姆斯策划了犹如美国历史采风活动的整个行程。比如路上有个加油站，叫作“福吉谷”，他们的午餐特色菜包括“葛底斯堡虾”和“威廉·佩恩猪里脊”。他们每到一家餐馆，女招待都会先盯着她父亲，然后看看她母亲，接着是她、内斯和汉娜。虽然那时还小，莉迪亚却知道，他们再也不会出来旅游了。自那时起，她父亲每年都会在暑假班教课，就好像她的推测是正确的——这是为了避免带着全家人出门度假。
In April, home was the last place Nath wanted to be. All month — weeks before his visit to campus — he stacked books and clothes in a growing pile. Every evening before bed, he slipped the letter from beneath his pillow and reread it, savoring the details: a junior from Albany, Andrew Bynner, an astrophysics major, would escort him around campus, engage him in intellectual and practical discussions over meals in the dining hall, and host him for the long weekend. Friday to Monday, he thought, looking at his plane tickets; ninety-six hours. By the time he took his suitcase down, after Lydia’s birthday dinner, he had already sorted the things he’d take with him from those he’d leave behind.
四月，家是内斯最不愿逗留的地方。一整个月里——访问哈佛大学之前的那几周——他都在收拾东西，书本和衣服越堆越高。每天晚上临睡前，他都会从枕头底下抽出信来重读一遍，琢磨各种细节。来自奥尔巴尼的大三学生，安德鲁·宾纳，主修天体物理学专业，将陪同他参观校园，带他参加餐厅中举行的各种学术性和实践性讨论，在长周末期间接待他。从周五到周一，他看看手中的机票想到，有九十六个小时。莉迪亚的生日晚宴结束后，他把手提箱拿到楼下，他已经收拾好了所有要带的东西。
Nath pushed the door open. “Which one’s better?”
内斯推门进来：“哪件好？”
In Nath’s room, a drawer shut with a bang. Lydia leaned back on her bed and propped her heels on the postcard of Einstein. In her mouth, the sick-sweet taste of frosting still lingered; in her stomach, the birthday cake roiled. At the end of summer, she thought, Nath would pack not just the one suitcase but a trunk and a stack of boxes, all his books and all his clothes, everything he owned. The telescope would disappear from the corner; the stacks of aeronautics magazines would vanish from the closet. A band of dust would border the bare shelves, clean wood at the back where the books had once stood. Every drawer, when she opened it, would be empty. Even the sheets on his bed would be gone.
内斯的房间里传来抽屉猛然关闭的声音。莉迪亚靠在床上，脚跟顶着爱因斯坦明信片。她嘴里还有又甜又腻的糖霜味，生日蛋糕在她胃里翻腾。夏季结束时，她想，内斯要收拾的就不止一个手提箱了，而是一只大皮箱和一叠纸箱，带走他所有的书和衣服，所有属于他的东西。他的房间角落里不会再有望远镜，柜子里的航空学杂志也会消失，空书架上将落满灰尘。每只抽屉——当她敞开它们——都将是空的。连他的床单也会消失不见。
He held up two shirts, a hanger in each hand, so they flanked his face like curtains. On his left, a plain blue, his best dress shirt, the one he had worn to his junior award ceremony last spring. On the right, a paisley she’d never seen before, a price tag still dangling from the cuff.
他举起两件衬衫，一手拿着一个衣架，衬衫挂在上面像帘子一样。左手那件是蓝色的，是他最好的正装衬衫，去年春天，他穿着它参加了高二的颁奖典礼；右手那件则有旋涡花纹，她从来没见过，袖口上还挂着吊牌。
“Where’d you get that?”
“你从哪儿弄来的那一件？”
“Bought it,” Nath said with a grin. All his life, whenever he needed new clothes, their mother dragged him to Decker’s Department Store, and he agreed to anything she picked out in order to go home faster. Last week, counting over his ninety-six hours, he had driven himself to the mall for the first time and bought this shirt, plucking the bright pattern from the rack. It had felt like buying a new skin, and now his sister sensed this, too.
“买的。”内斯笑着说。以前，当他需要衣服的时候，玛丽琳就会把他拖到德克尔百货商店，为了早点回家，母亲给他挑什么他就要什么。上星期，他在倒数访问时间的时候，第一次主动开车来到商场，买下这件彩色花纹的衬衫，感觉就像换了一身新皮。现在，莉迪亚也有同感。
“A little fancy for going to class.” Lydia did not right herself. “Or is that how they expect you to dress at Harvard?”
“穿去上课有点太花哨，”莉迪亚不假思索地说，“或者说，哈佛的人都这么穿？”
He disappeared into the bathroom, and Lydia heard the scrape of hanger on shower rod. A mixer: Music, dancing, beer. Flirting. Phone numbers and addresses scribbled on scraps of paper. Write me. Call me. We’ll get together. Slowly her feet slid down to rest on her pillow. A mixer. Where new students got whirled together and blended up and turned into something new.
他进了浴室，莉迪亚听到衣架挂上浴帘撑杆的摩擦声。所谓的晚会，就是音乐、跳舞、啤酒、调情，交换涂抹在纸片上的电话号码和地址。给我写信。给我打电话。我们一起玩。她慢慢放下脚，搁在枕头上。晚会，也就是新生们搅和在一起，变成某种全新的混合物。
Nath lowered the hangers. “There’s a mixer for visiting students. And my host student wrote me — he and his roommates are throwing a party that weekend. To celebrate the end of term.” He held the patterned shirt against him, tucking collar beneath chin. “Maybe I’d better try it on.”
内斯放下衣架：“他们为来访的学生举行了一个晚会，而且，接待我的学生写信告诉我，他和他的室友还要在周末开派对，庆祝学期结束。”他举起花纹衬衫，比在身前，下巴压着衣领，“也许我最好试穿一下。”
Nath reappeared in the doorway, fastening the top button of the paisley shirt. “What do you think?”
内斯重新出现在走廊里，系着花纹衬衫领口的扣子：“你觉得怎么样？”
“The other one’s better,” she said. “You’re going to college, not Studio 54.” But she knew Nath had already made up his mind.
“另一件更好。”她说，“你去的是大学，而不是夜店。”但她知道，内斯已经想好了穿哪一件。
Late that night, just before midnight, she tiptoed into Nath’s room. She had wanted to tell him all evening about their father and Louisa, about what she’d seen in the car that afternoon, what she knew was going on. Nath had been too preoccupied, and pinning down his attention had been like catching smoke in her hands. This was her last chance. He would be leaving in the morning.
后来，快到半夜的时候，她踮着脚尖走进内斯房间。那天晚上，她一直想把詹姆斯和路易莎的事告诉内斯：那天下午，她在车上看到的一切，她对事态的“了解”。内斯最近一直很忙，占用他的时间很不容易。这是她最后的机会，他明天早晨就要走了。
Lydia bit her lip. The blue pattern against the white suited him; it made him look thinner, taller, tanner. Though the buttons were plastic, they gleamed like pearl. Already Nath looked like a different person, someone she’d known once a long time ago. Already she missed him.
莉迪亚咬着嘴唇。白底蓝花看上去很适合他，让他显得更瘦、更高、更黑。虽然纽扣是塑料的，但闪烁着珍珠般的光泽。内斯看上去像变了一个人，变成了她很久以前认识的一个人。他还没走，她就开始想念他了。
In the dim room, only the small desk lamp was on, and Nath was in his old striped pajamas, kneeling at the windowsill. For a moment Lydia thought he was praying, and, embarrassed at catching him in such a private moment — like seeing him naked — she began to close the door. Then, at the sound of her footsteps, Nath turned, his smile as incandescent as the moon just beginning to swell over the horizon, and she realized she’d been wrong. The window was open. He had not been praying, but dreaming — which, she would realize later, came to almost the same thing.
昏暗的房间里只开着一盏小台灯，内斯穿着他的旧条纹睡衣，跪在窗台上。一开始，莉迪亚觉得他是在祷告，以为自己目睹了他的私密时刻，她尴尬地准备关门出去——好像看到他没穿衣服一样。听到她的脚步声，内斯转过头，他脸上的笑容犹如刚从地平线上升起的月亮，莉迪亚这才意识到她搞错了。窗户是敞开的。他没在祷告，而是在憧憬什么美好的东西——后来她意识到，前者和后者几乎是没有什么区别的。
“Look at that,” he whispered, with such awe that Lydia sank to her knees beside him and peered out. Above them, the sky rolled out a deep black, like a pool of ink, littered with stars. They were nothing like the stars in her science books, blurred and globby as drops of spit. They were razor-sharp, each one precise as a period, punctuating the sky with light. Tipping her head back, she could not see the houses or the lake or the lamps on the street. All she could see was the sky, so huge and dark it could crush her. It was like being on another planet. No — like floating in space, alone. She searched for the constellations she had seen on Nath’s posters: Orion, Cassiopeia, the Big Dipper. The diagrams seemed childish now, with their straight lines and primary colors and stick-figure shapes. Here the stars dazzled her eyes like sequins. This is what infinity looks like, she thought. Their clarity overwhelmed her, like pinpricks at her heart.
“看那里。”他低声说，莉迪亚跪在他旁边往外看。头顶漆黑的夜幕像一池墨水，星光熠熠。这些星星和她科学书上的插图看上去完全不一样，书上的星星模糊晦暗，如同摇摇欲坠的口水，而天上的星星棱角分明，每一颗都像一个完美的句号，用光亮为天空断句。莉迪亚望向远处的地平线，她看不到房屋和湖面，或是街上的路灯。她只能看到天空，又大又黑，可以把她压垮。他们仿佛置身另一个星球。不——像是独自飘浮在太空。按照内斯墙上贴的星座示意图，她寻找着天上的星座：猎户座、仙后座、北斗七星。现在看来，与实景相比，图片上的星座显得呆板稚气，轮廓生硬，颜色单调，形状牵强。而眼前的星星像衣服上的亮片一样对她眨着眼睛。“这就是所谓的‘无限’。”她想。星光澄明，令她倾倒，如同针尖刺在她的心上。
“Nath,” she began. The rush of things she wanted to say churned in her head: I saw. I think. I need. Such a large thing to break into tiny granules of words. Nath didn’t seem to notice.
“内斯，”她说，不知道该怎么起头，“我看见……我认为……我需要……”于是，一件重要的事情被拆解为一些零碎的措辞，然而，内斯似乎没发觉她的纠结。
The next morning, as Nath tucked his toothbrush into its case, Lydia hovered in the doorway. In ten minutes, their father would drive him to the airport in Cleveland, where TWA would carry him to New York, then Boston. It was four thirty A. M.
第二天一早，内斯把牙刷塞进箱子的时候，莉迪亚在走廊里徘徊。十分钟后，他们的父亲会开车送他去克利夫兰的机场，环球航空公司将带他去纽约，然后到波士顿。现在是凌晨四点三十分。
“Isn’t that amazing,” Nath’s voice said softly, out of the darkness. Already he sounded light-years away.
“很神奇吧。”内斯在黑暗中轻轻地说。他的声音听上去像好几光年以外传来的。
“Promise you’ll call and tell me how things are going.”
“答应我，你会打电话告诉我那边的情况。”
“You promise?”
“你保证？”
Much later, when Lydia came downstairs for breakfast, she could almost pretend that nothing had changed. Her homework lay beside her breakfast bowl with four little ticks in the margin; across the table, Hannah picked pebbles of cereal from her bowl. Their mother sipped oolong and leafed through the newspaper. Only one thing was different: Nath’s place was empty. As if he had never been there.
过了很久，莉迪亚下楼吃早饭，她几乎可以假装什么都没发生过。她的家庭作业放在粥碗旁边，本子的空白处有四个小对勾；桌子对面，汉娜正从她的碗里捞起成坨的麦片。她们的母亲呷着乌龙茶，翻阅报纸。只有一个地方不一样：内斯的座位是空的，仿佛他从来没在那里坐过。
“Yeah,” Lydia heard her own voice say, barely a whisper. “Amazing.”
“是啊。”莉迪亚听见自己说，几乎是在耳语，“神奇。”
“Sure,” Nath said. He stretched the elastic straps over his folded clothes in a neat X and clapped the suitcase shut.
“当然。”内斯说。他用松紧带捆起叠好的衣服，利落地扣成一个“X”，关上箱盖。
And just like that, he was gone.
就这样，他走了。
“I promise.” Nath shut the latches with one finger, then hoisted the suitcase by the handle. “Dad’s waiting. I’ll see you Monday.”
“我保证。”内斯用一根手指扣上锁，握住把手，拖起箱子，“爸爸在等我。我们星期一见。”
“There you are,” Marilyn said. “Better hurry and fix this, sweetheart, or you won’t have time to eat before the bus.”
“你来啦，”玛丽琳说，“快点改完这些，亲爱的，否则你就没时间在校车来之前吃完早饭了。”
Nath did not call that night, when Lydia shrank and shriveled beneath her parents’ undeflected attention. I got a course catalog from the college — do you want to take statistics this summer? Anyone ask you to prom yet? Well, I’m sure someone will soon. He did not call Saturday, when Lydia cried herself to sleep, or on Sunday, when she awoke with eyes still scalding. So this is what it will be like, she thought to herself. As if I never had a brother at all.
那天晚上，内斯没有打来电话，莉迪亚在父母一如往常的两面夹攻下瑟瑟发抖。“我从学院拿到一份课目表，你愿意今年夏天学习统计学吗？”“有没有人邀请你参加舞会？好了，很快就会有人邀请你的。”他星期六也没有打来，那天莉迪亚是哭着睡着的；星期天也没有。所以，以后都会这样，她想。就像我从来没有过哥哥一样。
Lydia, who felt as if she were floating, made her way to the table. Marilyn, meanwhile, skimmed the paper — Carter’s approval rating 65 percent, Mondale settling into role of “Senior Adviser,” asbestos banned, another shooting in New York — before her eyes came to rest on a small human-interest story in the corner of the page. Los Angeles Doctor Revives Man in Coma for Six Years. Amazing, she thought. She smiled up at her daughter, who stood clinging to the back of her chair as if, without it, she might drift away.
莉迪亚自觉脚步虚浮，她飘飘摇摇地来到桌边。这时，玛丽琳正在浏览报纸——卡特总统的支持率达到65%，蒙代尔成为他的“高级顾问”，石棉禁令，纽约再现枪击案——她的视线移动到角落里的一段有趣的报道上：洛杉矶医生唤醒昏迷六年的病人。神奇，玛丽琳想。她抬眼看向女儿，莉迪亚紧靠在椅背上坐着，似乎要是不这样，她就会飘出去。
With Nath gone, Hannah followed Lydia like a puppy, scampering to her door each morning before Lydia’s clock radio had even gone off, her voice breathless, just short of a pant. Guess what? Lydia, guess what? It was never guessable and never important: it was raining; there were pancakes for breakfast; there was a blue jay in the spruce tree. Each day, all day, she trailed Lydia suggesting things they could do — We could play Life, we could watch the Friday Night Movie, we could make Jiffy Pop. All her life, Hannah had hovered at a distance from her brother and sister, and Lydia and Nath had tacitly tolerated their small, awkward moon. Now Lydia noticed a thousand little things about her sister: the way she twitched her nose once-twice, fast as a rabbit, when she was talking; the habit she had of standing on her toes, as if she had on invisible high heels. And then, Sunday afternoon, as Hannah climbed into the wedges Lydia had kicked off, she delivered her latest idea — We could go play by the lake. Lydia, let’s go play by the lake — and Lydia noticed something else, shiny and silver beneath Hannah’s shirt.
内斯走了，汉娜开始像小狗一样跟着莉迪亚。每天早晨，莉迪亚的闹钟一响，汉娜就蹦蹦跳跳地来到姐姐房间门口，激动地说：“你猜怎么了？莉迪亚，你猜怎么了？”但她根本猜不出来，而且答案从来不是什么重要的事，比方说，下雨了，早餐吃薄烤饼，云杉树上出现了一只蓝松鸦。每一天，一整天，她都会跟着莉迪亚，不停地提建议——我们玩过家家吧，我们来搞一个周五晚上的电影之夜吧，我们做爆米花吧。莉迪亚一生都与她的哥哥和妹妹保持一定距离，对于汉娜这颗可怕的小卫星，莉迪亚和内斯采取的是默默容忍的态度。现在，莉迪亚发现了妹妹的很多小特点：她说话的时候，会不时抽两下鼻子，像兔子一样快；她习惯踮脚站着，像是穿了隐形的高跟鞋。星期天下午，汉娜刚把脚伸进莉迪亚踢到地上的坡跟鞋，就又冒出了新的主意：“我们去湖边玩吧。莉迪亚，我们去湖边玩吧。”莉迪亚却注意到了别的事情：汉娜的衬衣里面，有个银色的东西在闪闪发光。
With a loud crack, her hand struck Hannah’s cheek, knocking her back, snapping her head to the side. Then she looped her whole hand through the chain and twisted, hard, jerking her forward like a dog on a choke collar. I’m sorry, Hannah began, but nothing emerged except a soft gasp. Lydia twisted harder. Then the necklace snapped, and both sisters found they could breathe again.
她的手“啪”的一声打在汉娜脸上，汉娜向后退，头歪到一边。接着，莉迪亚一把抓过链子，用力一拧，像拽着狗项圈一样把妹妹拽过来。“对不起。”汉娜想说，但是她被勒得出不了声。莉迪亚拧得更紧了，然后，项链断了，姐妹俩同时发现，她们又可以呼吸了。
“What are you doing with that?”
“你拿它干什么？”
“What’s that?”
“那是什么？”
Hannah tried to turn away, but Lydia jerked her collar down to reveal what she’d already half glimpsed: a lithe silver chain, a slender silver heart. Her locket. She hooked it with one finger, and Hannah teetered, staggering out of Lydia’s shoes with a thump.
汉娜想背过身去，但莉迪亚拉下她的领口，里面的东西露出了一半：一条柔软的银链子和一个银色的心形坠子。她的挂坠。她勾住链子，汉娜开始摇晃，从莉迪亚的鞋里“噗通”一下摔了出来。
Hannah glanced at the doorway, as if the correct answer might be painted on the wall. Six days ago she had found the little velvet box beneath Lydia’s bed. “I didn’t think you wanted it,” she whispered. Lydia wasn’t listening. Every time you look at this, she heard her father say, just remember what really matters. Being sociable. Being popular. Blending in. You don’t feel like smiling? Then what? Force yourself to smile. Don’t criticize, condemn, or complain. Hannah, so pleased in that little silver snare, looked like her younger self — timid, gawky, shoulders just beginning to stoop under the weight of something that seemed so thin and silver and light.
汉娜朝走廊看了一眼，好像正确答案就贴在墙上。六天前，她在莉迪亚床下发现了那个丝绒小盒。“我以为你不要它了。”她小声说。莉迪亚没在听。“每当你看到它，”她仿佛听到父亲的声音，“不要忘记什么才是真正重要的。”合群。受欢迎。适应环境。你不想微笑？怎么办？逼自己笑。避免批评、谴责或者抱怨。戴着那副银色的小枷锁，汉娜是如此开心，就像莉迪亚小的时候——既胆小又迟钝，刚刚来到可以肩负如此轻细且泛着银光的东西的年纪。
“You don’t want that,” Lydia said, the gentleness in her voice surprising Hannah, surprising Lydia herself. “Listen to me. You think you do. You don’t.” She bunched the necklace in her fist. “Promise me you’ll never put this on again. Ever.”
“你不需要这个，”莉迪亚说，她声音里的和蔼让汉娜感到震惊，莉迪亚自己也吃了一惊，“听我说，你觉得你需要，但是你不需要。”她握住项链，“答应我，你再也不会戴上它了，永远不会。”
Hannah kept her word: later that night, and for years to come, she would look back on this moment, each time touching her throat, where the red mark of the chain had long since faded away. Lydia had looked more anxious than angry, the necklace dangling from her fingers like a dead snake; she had sounded almost sad, as if she had done something wrong, not Hannah. The necklace was, in fact, the last thing Hannah would ever steal. But this moment, this last talk with her sister, would puzzle her for a long time.
汉娜记住了她的话。那天晚上，以及以后许多年里的许多个晚上，她时常想起这一幕，每当触摸自己的喉咙，她都仿佛摸到那条早已消褪了的红线。当时，与其说是愤怒，莉迪亚看上去更像是焦虑，项链从她的指缝里垂下来，像一条死蛇；她的声音几乎称得上悲伤，好像是她自己做了错事，而不是汉娜。那条项链实际上是汉娜偷过的最后一样东西。然而这一刻，她和姐姐的最后一次谈话，将在很长时间里成为困扰她的谜题。
“Don’t ever smile if you don’t want to,” she said, and Hannah, half-blinded by the spotlight of Lydia’s whole attention, nodded. “Remember that.”
“如果你不愿意笑，就别笑。”她说。姐姐突然如此关注自己，汉娜有些难以适应，她点点头。“要记住。”
Hannah shook her head, eyes wide. Lydia touched her sister’s throat, her thumb smoothing the tiny thread of blood where the chain had sliced into the skin.
汉娜摇摇头，眼睛睁得很大。莉迪亚摸摸妹妹的喉咙，拇指摩挲着项链在皮肤上勒出的红线。
“Nath,” Lydia said. “It’s me.” To her surprise, tears welled in her eyes just at the sound of his voice — though his voice was deeper and blunter than usual, as if he had a cold. In fact, Nath was three-quarters through the first beer of his life, and the room was beginning to take on a warmish glow. Now his sister’s voice — flattened by long distance — sliced through that glow like a blunt knife.
“内斯，”莉迪亚说，“是我。”她惊讶地发觉，一听到内斯的声音，泪水竟然涌出了她的眼眶——他的声音比平常更低沉，更沙哑，好像感冒了一样。实际上，内斯现在已经喝掉了他人生中第一瓶啤酒的三分之一，整个房间在他眼中正散发出温暖的亮光。而他妹妹的声音——因为是长途线路而变得单调——像一把钝刀子，截断了那些闪光。
That evening, in the safety of her room, Lydia pulled out the piece of loose-leaf on which Nath had scrawled his host student’s number. After dinner — when her father retreated to his study and her mother settled into the living room — she unfolded it and picked up the telephone on the landing. The phone rang six times before someone answered and, in the background, she could hear the raucous sounds of a party just getting under way. “Who?” the voice on the other end said, twice, and at last Lydia gave up whispering and snapped, “Nathan Lee. The visiting student. Nathan Lee.” Minutes ticked by, each ratcheting up the long-distance charge — though by the time the bill came, James would be too devastated to notice. Downstairs, Marilyn clicked the television dial around and around: Rhoda. Six Million Dollar Man. Quincy. Rhoda again. Then, finally, Nath came on the line.
那天晚上，莉迪亚从她房间的保险柜里拿出一张纸片，内斯在上面写了接待他的那名哈佛学生的电话号码。晚饭后，等到詹姆斯回书房、玛丽琳走进客厅之后，她打开那张纸，拿起楼梯平台上的电话。铃声响了六次才有人来接，从嘈杂的背景音判断，那边正在开派对。“找谁？”线路另一头的人问。他问到第二遍，莉迪亚才提高了声音说：“内森·李。访问的学生。内森·李。”几分钟过去了，长途话费在逐渐增加——虽然当电话账单送到的时候，詹姆斯已经崩溃，无心注意上面的数字。楼下，玛丽琳不停扳动电视的频道旋钮：《罗达》《六百万富翁》《昆西》，然后又是《罗达》。最后，终于，内斯接起电话。
“What’s the matter?”
“什么事？”
“You didn’t call.”
“你没打电话。”
“What?”
“什么？”
“You promised you’d call.” Lydia wiped her eyes with the back of one wrist.
“你答应过要打的。”莉迪亚用握紧的拳头背面擦擦眼睛。
“That’s why you’re calling?”
“你打电话就为了这个？”
“No, listen, Nath. I need to tell you something.” Lydia paused, puzzling over how to explain. In the background, a burst of laughter swelled like a wave crashing ashore.
“不，听着，内斯，我需要告诉你一件事。”莉迪亚顿了顿，思考着该如何解释。背景音里此时爆发出一阵哄笑，如同冲击海岸的巨浪。
Nath sighed. “What happened? Did Mom nag you about your homework?” He tipped the bottle to his lips and found the beer had gone warm, and the stale liquid shriveled his tongue. “Wait, let me guess. Mom bought you a special present, but it was just a book. Dad bought you a new dress — no, a diamond necklace — and he expects you to wear it. Last night at dinner you had to talk and talk and talk and all their attention was on you. Am I getting warmer?”
内斯叹了口气。“怎么了？妈妈抱怨你的家庭作业了吗？”他举起酒瓶放到嘴边，发现啤酒已经变暖了，尝起来索然无味，“等等，我猜猜。妈妈给你买了‘特别的礼物’，结果还是一本书。爸爸给你买了新连衣裙——不对，一条钻石项链——他希望你戴着它。昨天晚上吃饭的时候，你必须不停地说啊说啊说啊，他们的注意力都在你身上。我猜得对吗？”
Stunned, Lydia fell silent. All their lives Nath had understood, better than anyone, the lexicon of their family, the things they could never truly explain to outsiders: that a book or a dress meant more than something to read or something to wear; that attention came with expectations that — like snow — drifted and settled and crushed you with their weight. All the words were right, but in this new Nath’s voice, they sounded trivial and brittle and hollow. The way anyone else might have heard them. Already her brother had become a stranger.
莉迪亚目瞪口呆地沉默了。内斯比任何人都了解他们家的生活，包括那些专用的词汇，以及从来不足为外人道的隐情：一本书或者一件连衣裙，并非读物或衣物那么简单；父母越是关注你，对你的期望就越高，他们的关心像雪一样不断落到你的身上，最终把你压垮。虽然内斯的话没有说错，但是，这些词句被他用变了调的声音说出来，听上去是那么的琐碎、淡漠和空洞。他似乎害怕别人会听到他们的交谈。她的哥哥已经彻底变成了陌生人。
“God, I don’t have time for this.” In a flash of bitterness, he added, “Why don’t you go take your problems to Jack?”
“老天，我没时间听你说。”他愤慨地补充道，“你为什么不把你的问题告诉杰克呢？”
“I gotta go,” he said.
“我得挂了。”他说。
He did not know then how those words would haunt him. After he slammed the receiver back onto the cradle, a twinge of guilt, like a small sharp bubble, bored its way through his chest. But from far away, with the heat and noise of the party cocooning him, his perspective had shifted. Everything that loomed so large close up — school, their parents, their lives — all you had to do was step away, and they shrank to nothing. You could stop taking their phone calls, tear up their letters, pretend they’d never existed. Start over as a new person with a new life. Just a problem of geography, he thought, with the confidence of someone who had never yet tried to free himself of family. Soon enough Lydia, too, would head off to school. Soon enough she, too, would cut herself free. He gulped down the rest of his beer and went to get another.
内斯那时还不清楚自己为什么会突然说出这些话。把听筒用力扣回叉簧之后，内疚如同气泡般涌上心头，不过，派对的热浪和噪音包围着他，转移了他的注意力。学校、父母以及他们的生活逼得他太紧，他只有抽身逃离。你可以不接他们的电话，撕掉他们的来信，假装他们不曾存在，以新的自我开启新的人生。这说到底是个物理上的距离问题，他想，带着一个尚未真正将自己从家庭中解放出来的人所拥有的盲目自信：不久，莉迪亚也会离家上大学；不久，她也会获得自由。他吞掉剩余的啤酒，去拿另一瓶。
At home, alone on the landing, Lydia cradled the handset in her hands for a long time after the click. The tears that had choked off her voice dried away. A slow, burning anger at Nath began to smolder inside her, his parting words ringing in her ears. I don’t have time for this. He had turned into a different person, a person who didn’t care that she needed him. A person who said things to hurt her. She felt herself becoming a different person, too: a person who would slap her sister. Who would hurt Nath as much as he had hurt her. Go take your problems to Jack.
家里，莉迪亚独自待在楼梯平台上，听到内斯挂断电话，她捧着听筒呆立了许久，曾经让她声音哽咽的泪水已经干了，对内斯燃起的怒火开始在她心里缓缓蔓延。他最后那句话回响在她耳边。“我没时间听你说。”他变成了另一个人，这个人不在乎她是否需要他，这个人说了伤害她的话。她觉得自己也变成了另一个人，一个会打自己妹妹耳光的人，一个会像内斯伤害她那样反过来报复他的人。“把你的问题告诉杰克。”
“Wait. Wait, Nath. Listen.”
“等等。等等，内斯，听着。”
Monday morning she put on her prettiest dress, the halter-neck with the tiny red flowers, which her father had bought her in the fall. Something new for the new school year, he had said. They had been shopping for school supplies and he had spotted it on a mannequin in the store’s window display. James liked to buy Lydia dresses off the mannequin; he was sure it meant everyone was wearing them. The latest thing, right? Every girl needs a dress for a special occasion. Lydia, who aimed for unobtrusive — a hooded sweater and corduroys; a plain blouse and bell-bottoms — knew it was a date dress, and she did not date. She had kept it in the back of her closet for months, but today she pulled it from the hanger. She parted her hair carefully, right down the center, and clipped one side back with a red barrette. With the tip of her lipstick she traced the curves of her mouth.
星期一早晨，她穿上最漂亮的连衣裙，脖子上有系带，印着红色的小花，这是她父亲去年秋天给她买的。“新学期，新气象。”他说。他们当时在买学习用品，詹姆斯在商店橱窗的模特身上看到这件衣服。詹姆斯喜欢给莉迪亚买模特身上展示的衣服，因为他觉得这意味着大家都爱穿它们。“最新款，对吗？在特殊场合，每个女孩都需要一件连衣裙。”然而莉迪亚看中的是不那么起眼的搭配：带兜帽的毛衣和条绒裤子，简洁的衬衫和喇叭裤。她知道这种连衣裙是用来穿着去约会的，但她不约会。她把这件衣服放在衣橱深处有好几个月了，但今天，她把它从衣架上拿下来。她仔细地梳理头发，让它们在额头中间分开，然后用一只红色发夹把一侧的头发固定好。她举着唇膏，用它的顶端描摹自己的唇线。
“Don’t you look nice,” James said at breakfast. “Just as pretty as Susan Dey.” Lydia smiled and said nothing, not when Marilyn said, “Lydia, don’t be too late after school, Nath will be home for dinner,” not when James touched one finger to her dimple — that old joke again — and said, “All the boys will be after you now.” Across the table, Hannah studied her sister’s dress and lipsticked smile, rubbing one finger against the rusty scab, fine as a spiderweb, that ringed her neck. Don’t, she wanted to say, though she didn’t know: don’t what? She knew only that something was about to happen, and that nothing she could say or do would prevent it. When Lydia had gone, she seized her spoon and mashed the soggy cereal in her bowl to a pulp.
“你真漂亮，”吃早饭时，詹姆斯说，“像苏珊·戴伊。”莉迪亚笑了笑，什么也没说。玛丽琳说：“莉迪亚，放学后回家不要太晚，内斯会回来吃晚饭。”这时她也没说话。詹姆斯戳戳她的酒窝——又开始逗她了——说：“现在，所有的男生都会围着你转。”她依然没说话。桌子对面的汉娜研究着姐姐的连衣裙、涂了唇膏的微笑，不由得伸出一根手指，摸了摸脖子上的伤痕，感觉它像绕在脖子上的蜘蛛网。“不要。”汉娜想说，但她并不清楚“不要干什么”。她只知道有什么事情要发生了，但她无论说什么、做什么，都不能阻止它的发生。莉迪亚走了之后，她握着勺子，把碗里湿透了的麦片捣成烂泥。
“It’s not like you’ll never see him again. I mean, he’ll come back. At Christmas. And summers. Right?” Jack raised an eyebrow.
“你又不是永远见不到他了，我是说，他会回来的，比如在圣诞节和暑假的时候，对吗？”杰克挑起一边的眉毛。
“So when’s Nath getting back?”
“内斯什么时候回来？”
Hannah was right. That afternoon, at Lydia’s suggestion, Jack drove up to the Point, overlooking the town, and they parked in the shade. On a Friday night, half a dozen cars would cluster there, windows slowly fogging, until a police car scattered them away. Now — in the bright light of a Monday afternoon — there was no one else around.
汉娜是对的。那天下午，在莉迪亚的建议下，杰克开车来到俯瞰全镇的制高点——波恩特，他们把车停在树荫里。在星期五的晚上，常会有五六辆车聚在这里，车窗慢慢被雾气笼罩，直到被一辆警车驱散开去。然而现在——在星期一的晴朗白天——周围并没有其他人。
“Tonight, I think.” In fact, Lydia knew, Nath would land at Hopkins Airport in Cleveland at five nineteen. He and their father would be home at six thirty. She peeked through the window to where First Federal’s clock rose, just visible in the center of town. Five minutes past four.
“今晚，我想。”其实莉迪亚知道，内斯的飞机下午五点十九分会在克利夫兰的霍普金斯机场降落。他和他们的父亲将在六点半回家。她透过窗户望着镇中心第一联邦银行的钟楼：四点零五分。
“Must be weird not having him around.”
“他不在家，你一定感到不自在。”
Lydia laughed, a small, bitter laugh. “Four days wasn’t long enough for him, I bet. He can’t wait to leave for good.”
莉迪亚笑了，那是一个勉强的苦笑。“四天时间对他来说还不够，我猜。他恨不得早点一走了之。”
“Maybe. Or maybe he’ll stay out there forever. Who cares.” Lydia swallowed, steadying her voice. “I’ve got my own life.” Through the rolled-down window, the new leaves of the maples rustled. A single helicopter, leftover from fall, broke free and spiraled to the ground. Every cell in her body was trembling, but when she looked down at her hands, they lay calm and quiet in her lap.
“也许吧。也许他永远都不回来了。谁在乎。”莉迪亚硬下心肠，稳住自己的声音，“我有自己的生活。”透过摇下的车窗，可以听到枫树的新叶沙沙作响。一片去年秋天留下的枯叶应声而落，像一架坠毁的直升机，旋转着掉到地上。莉迪亚觉得身上的每一个细胞都在颤抖，但当她低头凝视自己的双手时，却发现它们沉稳安静地放在膝盖上。
Jack looked startled. “What are you doing?”
杰克看上去吃了一惊。“你干什么？”
And while Jack stared, Lydia took a deep breath, as if she were diving underwater, and kissed him.
在杰克的注视下，莉迪亚深吸一口气——好像准备潜水一样，然后吻了他。
She opened the glove compartment and fished out the box of condoms. There were still two inside, just as there had been months ago.
她打开储物柜，摸出那盒安全套。里面还剩两个，和两个月前一样。
“It’s okay. Don’t worry. I won’t regret anything.” He was so close she could smell the sweet saltiness of his skin. “You know, you’re not like people think,” she said, touching one hand to his thigh. “Everybody thinks, with all those girls, you don’t care about anything. But that’s not true. That’s not really who you are, is it?” Her eyes met his, blue on blue. “I know you.”
“没关系，别担心。我不会后悔的。”他离得很近，她能闻到他皮肤上的咸味，“你知道，你和别人想的不一样。”她说，一只手放在他的大腿上，“大家都觉得，你和那么多女孩……你什么都不在乎。但是，那不是真的，不是真的你，对吗？”他们的视线碰在一起，蓝色对蓝色，“我了解你。”
She had never kissed anyone before, and it was — though she didn’t know it — a sweet kiss, a chaste kiss, a little-girl kiss. Beneath her lips, his were warm and dry and still. Beneath the smoke, Jack smelled as if he had just been out in the woods, leafy and green. He smelled the way velvet felt, something you wanted to run your hands over and then press to your face. In that moment Lydia’s mind fast-forwarded, the way movies did. Past them clambering into the backseat, tumbling over one another, their hands too slow for their desires. Past untying the knot at the nape of her neck, past the peeling away of clothing, past Jack’s body hovering over hers. All the things she had never experienced and, in truth, could barely imagine. By the time Nath came home, she thought, she would be transformed. That evening, when Nath told her everything new that he had seen at Harvard, everything about the new and fabulous life he was already beginning, she would have something new to tell him, too.
她以前从未接过吻，这是一个——虽然她不知道——甜美的吻，纯真的吻，小女孩的吻。她觉得他的嘴唇温暖、干燥、平静，烟味之下的杰克带着树林里的清爽味道，绿叶般新鲜，天鹅绒般柔和，让人很想用手抓过来贴在脸上。那一刻，莉迪亚的大脑像电影快进一样飞速运转，预测着将要发生的一切：他们翻到后座上缠在一起，在欲望的驱使下互相抚摸，她解开裙子上的带子，他们脱掉衣服，杰克压在她身上。这些都是她未曾经历和未曾想象过的。当内斯回到家的时候，她想，她会完全变成另一个人。今天晚上，当内斯给她讲他在哈佛的见闻，描述他将要开始的新生活的时候，她也会有新闻要告诉他。
And then, very gently, Jack pulled away.
就在这时，杰克轻轻地退到了一边。
“You’re sweet,” he said.
“你人很好。”他说。
He gazed down at her, but — even Lydia understood this instinctively — not like a lover: tenderly, the way adults look at children who have fallen and hurt themselves. Inside, she shriveled. She looked down at her lap, letting her hair screen her burning face, and a bitter taste bloomed in her mouth.
他凝视着她，然而莉迪亚本能地看出来，这不是情人的那种凝视。虽然温柔，却是成年人看到孩子摔倒受伤时的眼神。她的心颤抖起来。她低头盯着膝盖，让头发遮住发热的脸，一股苦涩的味道在她嘴里绽放。
A long pause, so long she thought Jack had forgotten to answer. When he spoke at last, he turned toward the window, as if what he really meant were outside, beyond the maple trees, beyond the lake and everything beneath them. “Nath.”
长久的停顿，长到她以为杰克忘记了回答。当他终于开口时，他转头看着车窗，似乎自己的苦衷都在窗外，但不是枫树，不是湖水，也不是它们下面的任何东西。“是内斯。”
“Lydia,” Jack sighed, his voice flannel-soft. “It’s not you.”
“莉迪亚，”杰克叹息道，他的声音犹如法兰绒般柔软，“不是因为你。”
“Don’t tell me you’ve grown morals all of a sudden,” she said sharply. “Or am I just not good enough for you?”
“别告诉我你突然变成正人君子了。”她刻薄地说，“还是我对你来说不够好？”
“He matters,” Jack said, still looking out the window. “He matters to me.”
“他重要。”杰克说，眼睛仍然看着窗外，“对我来说他重要。”
“Then what?”
“那是因为什么？”
“Nath?” Lydia rolled her eyes. “Don’t be afraid of Nath. Nath doesn’t matter.”
“内斯？”莉迪亚翻了个白眼，“别怕他，他不重要。”
It took Lydia a minute to process this, and she stared, as if Jack’s face had changed shape, or his hair had changed color. Jack rubbed his thumb against the base of his ring finger, and she knew that he was telling the truth, that this had been the truth for a long, long time.
莉迪亚怔了一会儿才明白他的意思。她睁大眼睛看着杰克，仿佛他的脸突然改变了形状，头发换了颜色。杰克用拇指摩擦了一下无名指，莉迪亚知道他说的是事实，而且，这个事实已经存在了很长很长时间。
Snatches of conversation floated back to Lydia now, in a different tone. Where’s your brother? What’s Nath going to say? And: Are you going to tell your brother we’ve been hanging out, and I’m not such a bad guy? What had she said? He’d never believe me. The half-empty box of condoms gaped up at her, and she crushed it in her fist. I know you, she heard herself say again, and cringed. How could I have been so stupid, she thought. To have gotten him so wrong. To have gotten everything so wrong.
莉迪亚蓦然回忆起她和杰克的各种对话片段。“你哥哥呢？内斯会怎么说？”还有“你打算告诉你哥哥，我们一直在一起，而且我不是坏人吗？”她是怎么说的？“他可能永远都不会相信我了。”半空的安全套盒子张大着嘴巴看着她，她一拳把它打扁。“我了解你。”她仿佛又听到自己刚才说的这句话，只觉得难堪。我怎么能这么蠢，她想。怎么能如此误解他。我把一切都搞错了。
Jack smiled a wry smile. “How did you put it? Everybody thinks, with all those girls — but that’s not who you are.” He glanced at her sideways. Through the open window, a breeze ruffled his sandy curls. “No one would ever suspect.”
杰克嘲弄地笑笑。“你刚才是怎么说的来着？大家都知道，那么多女孩——但那不是你。”他瞥了她一眼，一阵微风钻进敞开的窗户，吹起他浅棕色的鬈发，“没人会怀疑。”
“But –” Lydia paused. Nath? “You’re always — I mean, everyone knows –” Without meaning to, she glanced at the backseat, at the faded Navajo blanket crumpled there.
“可是……”莉迪亚顿了顿，内斯？“你一直……我是说，大家都知道……”她不由自主地看了后座一眼，一条褪色的纳瓦霍毛毯堆在那里。
“I gotta go.” Lydia snatched her bookbag from the floor of the car.
“我得走了。”莉迪亚抓起车厢地板上的书包。
“I’m sorry.”
“对不起。”
“Sorry? For what? There’s nothing to be sorry about.” Lydia slung the bag over her shoulder. “Actually, I’m sorry for you. In love with someone who hates you.”
“对不起？为了什么？没有什么好对不起的。”莉迪亚把书包往肩上一甩，“其实，我为你感到遗憾——爱上了讨厌你的人。”
“At least I don’t let other people tell me what I want,” he said, and she flinched at the contempt in his voice. She had not heard it in so many months. “At least I know who I am. What I want.” His eyes narrowed. “What about you, Miss Lee? What do you want?”
“至少我不用别人来告诉我，我想要什么。”他说，语气里的轻蔑让她退缩，她好几个月都没听到这样的话了，“至少我知道我是谁，我想要什么。”他眯起眼睛，“你呢，李小姐？你想要什么？”
She glared at Jack: one sharp wince, as if she’d splashed water in his eyes. Then Jack’s face grew wary and pinched and closed, like it was with other people, like it had been the first day they’d met. He grinned, but it looked more like a grimace.
她怒视着杰克，一副咬牙切齿的样子，似乎下一秒她就会朝他的眼里泼水。杰克的表情又变得懒洋洋的，疲惫中透着狡诈，仿佛他是和别人在一起，和他们第一次相遇时一样。他咧嘴一笑，那笑容看上去更像一个痛苦的鬼脸。
Of course I know what I want, she thought, but when she opened her mouth she found it empty. In her mind words ricocheted like glass marbles — doctor, popular, happy — and scattered into silence.
我当然知道我想要什么，她想，但是，当她张开嘴，却说出不出话来。各种词句在她的脑袋里上下翻飞，像玻璃弹珠——医生、受欢迎、快乐——然后归于沉寂。
“I bet Nath would love to hear about all this,” she said. “I bet everyone at school would. Don’t you think so?”
“我猜，内斯一定愿意知道这件事，”她说，“我猜学校里的人也希望知道。你觉得呢？”
Lydia swallowed. Under his eyes her skin felt flayed away. She wanted to hit Jack, but that would not be painful enough. And then she knew what would hurt him most.
莉迪亚默然无语。他的眼神仿佛划开了她的皮肉，刺穿了她的内心。她想揍杰克，然而，这样做根本不足以让他痛苦。接着，她意识到什么会对他造成最大的伤害。
Jack snorted. “At least I don’t let other people tell me what to do all the time. At least I’m not afraid.”
杰克冷笑道：“至少我不会一直让别人告诉我该做什么。至少我不害怕。”
Before her eyes, Jack deflated like a pricked balloon.
当着她的面，杰克像一只被戳破的气球一样，一下子泄了气。
When she passed the lake and reached her own street, slowing to catch her breath at last, everything looked unfamiliar: strangely sharp, all the colors too bright, like an overtuned TV set. Green lawns were a little too blue, Mrs. Allen’s white gables a little too dazzling, the skin of her own arms a little too yellow. Everything felt just a bit distorted, and Lydia squinted, trying to squash it back into familiar shape. When she reached her own house, it took her a moment to realize that the woman sweeping the porch was her mother.
她沿着湖边走向家门前的小街，呼吸渐趋平稳，然而，原本熟悉的一切都变得陌生了——颜色过于明亮，犹如调节过度的电视图像。绿色的草坪有点偏蓝，艾伦夫人家的白色山墙太耀眼，她自己手臂上的皮肤颜色太黄。所有的东西都有些扭曲，莉迪亚眯起眼睛，试图把它们压成熟悉的形状。来到自己家门口时，过了片刻她才意识到，那个打扫门廊的女人是她的母亲。
“Look — Lydia –” he began, but she had already shoved the car door open and slammed it behind her. With each step, her bookbag thumped against her back, but she kept running, all the way down to the main road and toward home, not stopping even when a stitch knotted her side. At the sound of every car, she wheeled around, expecting to see Jack, but the VW was nowhere in sight. She wondered if he was still parked up there on the Point, that hunted look still in his eyes.
“听着——莉迪亚——”他终于开口，但她猛地推开车门跳下了车，再猛地把门关上。每跑一步，书包就重重地在她背上砸一下，但她还是继续跑，一直跑到通往她家的大路上，每听到一辆车过来她就四处张望，觉得可能是杰克，然而，他的大众车再也没出现。她怀疑他现在可能还留在波恩特，脸上仍然挂着恐慌的表情。
By tomorrow, Marilyn would forget this moment: Lydia’s shout, the shattered edges in her tone. It would disappear forever from her memory of Lydia, the way memories of a lost loved one always smooth and simplify themselves, shedding complexities like scales. For now, startled by her daughter’s unusual tone, she attributed it to fatigue, to the late afternoon.
等到明天，玛丽琳就会忘记这一刻：莉迪亚的叫喊，她嘶哑的声调。它将永远消失在她对莉迪亚的记忆中，因为，对逝去的心爱之人的记忆，会自动变得平顺和简单，它会把各种复杂纠结的成分当成丑陋的鳞片一样甩掉。现在，玛丽琳已经把女儿的反常归因为傍晚的疲倦。
“You feel warm,” Marilyn said. She picked up the broom again. “I’m almost finished. Then we can start reviewing for your exams.” Tiny green buds, fallen from the trees, crushed themselves beneath the bristles.
“你身上挺热的。”玛丽琳说完，重新拿起扫帚，“我马上扫完了，然后我们就开始复习备考。”树上落下的绿色花蕾被坚硬的扫帚压碎。
Marilyn, spotting her daughter, held out her arms for a kiss. Only then did Lydia discover the box of condoms still clutched in her hand, and she shoved it into her bookbag, inside the lining.
看到女儿，玛丽琳张开双臂准备亲她。这时莉迪亚才发觉，她手里依然握着那盒安全套，她急忙把它塞进书包，藏在衬里下面。
For a moment Lydia’s voice froze, and when it finally emerged, it was so jagged neither she nor her mother recognized it. “I told you,” she snapped. “I don’t need your help.”
莉迪亚一时说不出话来，过了一会儿，她才发出沙哑的声音，然而，她自己和她母亲都没有注意到她声音的异常。“我告诉过你，”她愤怒地说，“我不需要你的帮助。”
“Not much time left,” she called as Lydia pulled the front door open. “You know, it’s already May.”
“没有多少复习时间了，”莉迪亚拉开前门时，玛丽琳说，“你知道，已经是五月了。”
As for Lydia: all evening, she asked herself the same question. She did not notice her father’s nostalgia, or her brother’s illuminated face. All through dinner, and after dinner, after she had said goodnight, that one question churned through her mind. How had this all gone so wrong? Alone, record player humming in the lamplight, she dug back through her memory: Before Jack’s face that afternoon, defiant and tender and hunted all at once. Before Jack. Before the failed physics test, before biology, before the ribbons and books and the real stethoscope. Where had things gone askew?
至于莉迪亚，整个晚上，她都在问自己同一个问题。她没注意到父亲对往事的怀念和她哥哥容光焕发的脸。从晚餐开始到结束，到她对家人说完晚安，那个问题一直在她心里翻腾：为什么会错得如此彻底？电唱机在灯光下浅吟低唱，她陷入倒序的回忆之中：下午她冲下车时杰克的表情，挑衅、脆弱、恐慌。她遇到了杰克。她的物理考试不及格。她选修了生物课。她参加科学展览。母亲给她买书，送她真正的听诊器。事情是从哪里开始不对劲的呢？
Later, when they look back on this last evening, the family will remember almost nothing. So many things will be pared away by the sadness to come. Nath, flushed with excitement, chattered through dinner, but none of them — including him — will remember this unusual volubility, or a single word he said. They will not remember the early-evening sunlight splashing across the tablecloth like melted butter, or Marilyn saying, The lilacs are starting to bloom. They will not remember James smiling at the mention of Charlie’s Kitchen, thinking of long-ago lunches with Marilyn, or Hannah asking, Do they have the same stars in Boston? and Nath answering, Yes, of course they do. All of that will be gone by morning. Instead, they will dissect this last evening for years to come. What had they missed that they should have seen? What small gesture, forgotten, might have changed everything? They will pick it down to the bones, wondering how this had all gone so wrong, and they will never be sure.
后来，当他们回想最后那个夜晚的时候，却发现什么都不记得了——悲伤占据了所有回忆的位置。那天晚上，内斯兴奋得满脸通红，一直在餐桌上喋喋不休，然而，他们——包括他——都忘记了他这次不寻常的健谈，更想不起他说了些什么。他们不记得夕阳的余晖洒满桌布，犹如融化的黄油。玛丽琳说：“丁香花开了。”他们不记得詹姆斯听见内斯提到查理餐厅时的微笑，因为他想起多年前自己和玛丽琳经常去那里吃午餐。不记得汉娜问：“波士顿的星星和我们这里的一样吗？”内斯回答：“是的，当然一样。”一切记忆到了第二天早晨都会消失。以后的很多年，他们不停地剖析着那个晚上，冥思苦想自己忽略了哪些应该注意的细节，哪些被遗忘的小动作可能改变一切。他们剥皮拆骨，条分缕析，想知道事情是如何发展成这个样子的，却永远无法确定原因。
As her clock flipped from 1:59 to 2:00 with a gentle click, it came to her, falling into place with the same tiny sound. The record had long since spun to a halt, and the darkness outside made the silence deeper, like the muffled hush of a library. She knew at last where everything had gone wrong. And she knew where she had to go.
闹钟从1：59跳到2：00，发出低低的“咔哒”声，从这个声音开始，她的思绪逐渐明朗。电唱机早就停了，外面的黑暗使寂静更加深沉，犹如图书馆般沉闷。她终于知道所有错误是从哪里开始的了，也知道了自己不得不去的地方。
Jack was right: she had been afraid so long, she had forgotten what it was like not to be — afraid that, one day, her mother would disappear again, that her father would crumble, that their whole family would collapse once more. Ever since that summer without her mother, their family had felt precarious, as if they were teetering on a cliff. Before that she hadn’t realized how fragile happiness was, how if you were careless, you could knock it over and shatter it. Anything her mother wanted, she had promised. As long as she would stay. She had been so afraid.
杰克是对的。她一直活在恐惧之中，她不知道除了恐惧还能做什么——她害怕有一天母亲会再次消失，她父亲会因此崩溃，全家再次瓦解。从那年夏天母亲离家出走开始，他们家就处于岌岌可危的状态，全家人仿佛身处一座悬崖之上，摇摇欲坠。此前，她根本不会意识到幸福是多么的脆弱，不知道只要你不小心，就能轻而易举地推倒幸福，让它粉身碎骨。此后，她母亲的所有心愿都变成她的承诺。只要她能留下。她一直是如此的恐惧。
The wood of the dock was just as smooth as she remembered it. Lydia sat down at the end, as she had so long ago, feet dangling over the edge, where the rowboat knocked softly against the pier. All this time, she had never dared come so close again. Tonight, in the dark, she felt no fear, and she noted this with a calm sense of wonder.
小码头的木质表面很光滑，与她的记忆吻合。莉迪亚在码头顶端坐下，像很久以前那样，脚垂在水面上，身旁的小船轻柔地拍打着水面。她从来不敢离水太近。今天晚上，在黑暗中，她却觉得无所畏惧——她惊奇而平静地发现了这一点。
So every time her mother said Do you want –? she had said yes. She knew what her parents had longed for, without them saying a word, and she had wanted them happy. She had kept her promise. And her mother had stayed. Read this book. Yes. Want this. Love this. Yes. Once, at the college museum, while Nath had pouted about missing the star show, she had spotted a nugget of amber with a fly trapped inside. “That’s four million years old,” Marilyn whispered, wrapping her arms around her daughter from behind. Lydia had stared until Nath, at last, had dragged them both away. Now she thought of the fly landing daintily in the pool of resin. Perhaps it had mistaken it for honey. Perhaps it hadn’t seen the puddle at all. By the time it had realized its mistake, it was too late. It had flailed, and then it had sunk, and then it had drowned.
所以，每当母亲说“你想不想”的时候，她会说“是的”。她知道父母一直渴望什么——不用他们说出来就知道，而她，希望他们开心。她遵守了诺言。她母亲留了下来。读读这本书。是的。你想要这个。你喜欢这个。是的。一次，在大学博物馆，内斯抱怨不能去参观天文展览的时候，她看到一块天然琥珀，一只苍蝇困在了里面。“那是四百万年前的东西。”玛丽琳轻声说着，从身后搂住女儿。莉迪亚就盯着琥珀看，直到内斯最后把她们两人分别拉开为止。现在，她想起那只曾经优美地降落在一摊树脂里的苍蝇，也许它误以为那是蜂蜜，也许它从未见过树脂。当它意识到自己犯下的错误时，已经太晚了。它挣扎扑腾，然后沉陷，最后淹死。
Ever since that summer, she had been so afraid — of losing her mother, of losing her father. And, after a while, the biggest fear of all: of losing Nath, the only one who understood the strange and brittle balance in their family. Who knew all that had happened. Who had always kept her afloat.
从那个夏天开始，她就非常恐惧——害怕失去她的母亲和她的父亲。不久，她最大的恐惧出现了：失去内斯。他是唯一理解他们家那种奇怪而脆弱的平衡的人。他完全清楚发生过什么。他总是托着她，不让她沉下去。
Then: warmth. Nath’s fingers, Nath’s hand, Nath’s arm, Nath pulling her back up and her head coming up out of the lake, water dripping out of her hair into her eyes and her eyes stinging. Kick, Nath had told her. His hands held her up, surprising her with their strength, their sureness, and she had felt warm all over. His fingers caught hers and right then she had stopped being afraid.
然后是温暖。内斯的手指，内斯的手，内斯的胳膊，内斯揪住她的脊背。她的头钻出湖面，头发上的水流进她的眼睛，激起刺痛。踢水，内斯告诉她。他把她托起来，他双手的力量和沉稳令她惊讶，她觉得全身恢复了暖意。他的手指抓着她，那一刻，她不再害怕了。
That long-ago day, sitting in this very spot on the dock, she had already begun to feel it: how hard it would be to inherit their parents’ dreams. How suffocating to be so loved. She had felt Nath’s hands on her shoulders and been almost grateful to fall forward, to let herself sink. Then, when her head had plunged beneath the surface, the water was like a slap. She had tried to scream and coldness slid down her throat, choking her. She’d stretched out her toes looking for ground and there wasn’t any. Nothing when she reached out her arms. Only wetness and cold.
很久以前的那天，就是坐在这个码头上的这个位置时，她已经开始感觉到，继承父母的梦想是多么艰难，如此被爱是多么令人窒息。发觉内斯把手放在她肩上的那一刻，她几乎是心怀感激地落到了水里，让自己沉下去。当她的头完全没入水下，水就像手掌掴着她的脸。她想尖叫，但冰冷的感觉涌进她的喉咙，让她窒息。她伸展脚趾寻找陆地，根本没有陆地。她的手中空无一物，只有潮湿和冰冷。
It had been the same ever since. Don’t let me sink, she had thought as she reached for his hand, and he had promised not to when he took it. This moment, Lydia thought. This is where it all went wrong.
从那以后，就总是这样，只要她伸出手说，别让我沉下去，他就握住她的手，不让她下沉。就是那一刻，莉迪亚想，从那里开始，一切都错了。
Kick your legs. I’ve got you. Kick.
踢水。我抓住你了。踢。
And Nath. She will tell him that it’s all right for him to leave. That she will be fine. That he’s not responsible for her anymore, that he doesn’t need to worry. And then she will let him go.
她要对内斯说，他走了也没关系，她会没事的，他不必再为她负责，也无需担心。然后，她就让他走。
It was not too late. There on the dock, Lydia made a new set of promises, this time to herself. She will begin again. She will tell her mother: enough. She will take down the posters and put away the books. If she fails physics, if she never becomes a doctor, it will be all right. She will tell her mother that. And she will tell her mother, too: it’s not too late. For anything. She will give her father back his necklace and his book. She will stop holding the silent phone to her ear; she will stop pretending to be someone she is not. From now on, she will do what she wants. Feet planted firmly on nothing, Lydia — so long enthralled by the dreams of others — could not yet imagine what that might be, but suddenly the universe glittered with possibilities. She will change everything. She will tell Jack she’s sorry, that she’ll never tell his secret. If he can be brave, so sure of who he is and what he wants, perhaps she can, too. She’ll tell him that she understands.
还不算太晚。莉迪亚在码头上许下新的承诺，这一次，是对她自己许的。她将重新开始。她会告诉她的母亲，够了。就算她物理不及格，就算她永远当不成医生，那也没关系。她还会告诉母亲，还不算太晚。一切都不晚。她要把项链和书还给父亲，她再也不会把只有拨号音的听筒扣在耳朵上，她再也不会假装成另一个人了。从现在开始，她要做她想做的事情。双脚悬空的莉迪亚——她一直都被别人的梦想深深吸引——突然发现了宇宙中华丽闪耀的各种可能性，她决心改变一切。她要对杰克说对不起，告诉他，她永远不会讲出他的秘密。既然他能如此勇敢，清楚地明白自己是谁、想要什么，那么，也许她也能。她会告诉他，她理解他。
In the distance, the light from the dock shone like a star. If she squinted, she could just make out the dim shape of the dock itself, the pale line of boards against the darker night. When she got a little closer, she thought, she would be able to see it perfectly: the boards worn smooth by generations of bare feet, the posts that held them up just above the surface of the water. Carefully, she got to her feet, spreading her arms as the boat swayed. It was not so far. She could do this, she was certain. All she had to do was kick. She would kick her way to the dock and reach up to the planks and pull herself up out of the water. Tomorrow morning, she would ask Nath about Harvard. What it was like there. She would ask him about the people he met, the classes he would take. She would tell him he’d have a wonderful time.
远处，码头上的灯犹如闪烁的孤星，如果眯起眼睛细看，还能分辨出码头本身昏暗的轮廓和沉沉夜幕下暗淡的木板。如果能再靠近一点，她想，就能完全看清楚。几代人的光脚把木板磨得十分光滑，支撑它们的木桩刚刚露出水面。她小心翼翼地站起来，展开双臂，小船开始摇晃。码头并不远。她能做到，她很肯定。只需要踢水，她就能一路游向码头，攀上那些木板，离开水面。明天早晨，她要问问内斯哈佛的事情，那里是什么样的，她要让他讲讲他遇到的人，上过些什么课。她要告诉他，他会在哈佛度过美好的时光。
She looked down at the lake, which in the dark looked like nothing, just blackness, a great void spreading beneath her. It will be all right, she told herself, and she stepped out of the boat into the water.
她低头看着湖水，黑暗中仿佛空无一物，只有黑幽幽的颜色，一片巨大的虚无在她脚下铺展开来。没关系的，她告诉自己，然后，她就跨出小船，走进水中。
And as she made this last promise, Lydia understood what to do. How to start everything over again, from the beginning, so she would never again be afraid to be alone. What she must do to seal her promises, to make them real. Gently she lowered herself into the rowboat and loosed the rope. As she pushed away from the dock, she expected a surge of panic. It didn’t come. Even once she had rowed, stroke by clumsy stroke, out onto the lake — far enough that the lamppost was just a dot, too small to contaminate the darkness around her — she felt strangely calm and confident. Above her the moon was coin-round, sharp and perfect. Beneath her the boat rocked so gently that she could hardly feel its motion. Looking up at the sky, she felt as if she were floating in space, completely untethered. She could not believe that anything was impossible.
许下最后一个承诺的时候，莉迪亚明白了她要怎么做，如何重新开始，从头开始，这样，她就再也不用害怕孤独了。为了封存和实现她的承诺，她一定要这样做。她轻轻地下到小船里，松开缆绳。当她推了码头一把的时候，本以为自己会恐慌，然而，恐慌并没有来。她笨拙地划着水，朝远处漂去——直到湖边的灯柱变成小点，再也无法玷污她四周的黑暗——她感到异乎寻常的平静和自信。头顶的月亮圆得像硬币一样完美，轮廓分明。湖面风平浪静，她几乎感觉不到小船的轻微摇晃。仰望夜空，她觉得自己仿佛在太空飘浮，毫无羁绊，一切皆有可能。
0 条评论