第十六章: 不忠的人，违逆的天堂 Disloyal Man, Disobedient Heaven
“Tara can’t drive the crane,” Dad said. “It’ll take half the morning to teach her the controls, and she still won’t know what the hell she’s doing.”
“塔拉不能开起重机，”爸爸说，“她将花半个上午的时间才能弄明白操纵装置，而且还是不知道自己在干什么。”
“But she’ll be careful,” Shawn said, “and I’m done falling off shit.”
“但她会很小心的，”肖恩说，“我受够了，再也不想从上面掉下来了。”
My operating the crane was one of a hundred disputes between Dad and Shawn that Shawn won that summer. Most were not resolved so peacefully. They argued nearly every day — about a flaw in the schematics or a tool that had been left at home. Dad seemed eager to fight, to prove who was in charge.
那年夏天，肖恩和父亲之间发生了上百次争执，肖恩赢了很多次，由我负责操作起重机就是其中之一。但大多数问题没有得到如此和平的解决。他们几乎每天都吵——因为设计图表上的一个缺陷，或落在家里的一件工具。爸爸似乎渴望争斗，以此来证明谁是老大。
Construction began on the milking barn in Oneida. Shawn designed and welded the main frame — the massive beams that formed the skeleton of the building. They were too heavy for the loader; only a crane could lift them. It was a delicate procedure, requiring the welders to balance on opposite ends of a beam while it was lowered onto columns, then welded in place. Shawn surprised everyone when he announced that he wanted me to operate the crane.
奥奈达的牛奶仓库开始动工。肖恩设计和焊接主框架——构成建筑物骨架的巨大横梁。它们对装载机来说太重了；只有起重机才能将它们吊起来。这个程序是个精细活儿，要求焊工在大梁降至柱子上时使其两端保持平衡，然后焊接到位。当肖恩宣布他想让我操作起重机时，大家都吃了一惊。
An hour later I was in the man box, and Shawn and Luke were standing on either end of a beam, twenty feet in the air. I brushed the lever lightly, listening as the hydraulic cylinders hissed softly to protract. “Hold!” Shawn shouted when the beam was in place, then they nodded their helmets down and began to weld.
一个小时后，我坐在驾驶室里，肖恩和卢克站在离地二十英尺、悬于空中的大梁两端。我轻轻地碰了一下操纵杆，一边听着液压油缸发出的嘶嘶声，一边慢慢地向前伸展。横梁就位时，肖恩喊了一声“停”，然后他们拉下防护面罩开始焊接。
One afternoon Dad walked over and stood right next to Shawn, watching him weld. A minute later, for no reason, he started shouting: that Shawn had taken too long at lunch, that he wasn’t getting the crew up early enough or working us hard enough. Dad yelled for several minutes, then Shawn took off his welding helmet, looked at him calmly and said, “You gonna shut up so I can work?”
一天下午，爸爸走到肖恩旁边，看着他焊接。一分钟后，他无缘无故地大喊：肖恩吃午饭的时间太长，没能让小工队早起，也不催促我们努力干活。爸爸喊了几分钟，接着肖恩摘下焊接头盔，平静地看着他说：“你能不能闭嘴，让我干活？”
Dad kept yelling. He said Shawn was lazy, that he didn’t know how to run a crew, didn’t understand the value of hard work. Shawn stepped down from his welding and ambled over to the flatbed pickup. Dad followed, still hollering. Shawn pulled off his gloves, slowly, delicately, one finger at a time, as if there weren’t a man screaming six inches from his face. For several moments he stood still, letting the abuse wash over him, then he stepped into the pickup and drove off, leaving Dad to shout at the dust.
爸爸还在吼个不停。他说肖恩很懒，不懂得如何管理团队，不明白努力工作的价值。肖恩停下焊接的活儿，慢慢走到平板皮卡旁。爸爸跟在后面，仍然大喊大叫。肖恩慢慢地一个指头一个指头摘下手套。有人在离他脸旁六英寸的近旁吼叫，他好像全当不存在。有好一会儿，他站在那里一动不动，任由辱骂将自己淹没，然后钻进皮卡一溜烟开走了，只留下爸爸对着飞扬的尘土喊叫。
I remember the awe I felt as I watched that pickup roll down the dirt road. Shawn was the only person I had ever seen stand up to Dad, the only one whose force of mind, whose sheer tonnage of conviction, could make Dad give way. I had seen Dad lose his temper and shout at every one of my brothers. Shawn was the only one I ever saw walk away.
我还记得当我望着皮卡沿土路驶远时心中涌起的敬畏之情。肖恩是我见过的唯一一个敢和爸爸抗争的人，也是唯一一个能凭借强烈的意志和坚定的信念让爸爸屈服让步的人。我曾见过爸爸对每个哥哥大发脾气、又喊又叫。肖恩是我见过的唯一一个一走了之的人。
We paused the movie when Grandma delivered the brownies. We ate them in silence, our spoons clicking loudly against Grandma’s porcelain plates. “You’ll get your twenty-seven,” Shawn said suddenly when we’d finished.
外婆端来布朗尼时，我们将电影暂停，默默吃着，勺子在外婆的瓷盘上叮当作响。“你会考到二十七分的。”我们吃完时，肖恩突然说。
The phone rang. It was Shawn. Did I want to watch a movie? I said I did, and a few minutes later I heard a loud rumble and looked out the window. With his booming black motorcycle and his wide-brimmed Aussie hat, he seemed entirely out of place parking parallel to Grandma’s white picket fence. Grandma started making brownies, and Shawn and I went upstairs to choose a movie.
电话响了，是肖恩打来的。他问我想不想看电影。我说想，几分钟后听见外面传来一阵隆隆声，于是朝窗外看去。他黑色摩托车的轰鸣、头上戴的澳洲宽檐帽，与外婆家的白色尖桩栅栏如此格格不入。外婆开始做巧克力布朗尼，我和肖恩上楼去选电影。
Shawn shrugged. “You’re as smart as Dad. If Dad’s right, you’ll know when you get there.”
肖恩耸耸肩。“你和爸爸一样聪明。爸爸说得对不对，到了那儿你就知道了。”
It was a saturday night. I was at Grandma-over-in-town’s, my math book propped open on the kitchen table, a plate of cookies next to me. I was studying to retake the ACT. I often studied at Grandma’s so Dad wouldn’t lecture me.
那是一个星期六的晚上。我在城里外婆家，厨房餐桌上摆着我的数学课本，旁边是一盘饼干。我正在为重新参加大学入学考试而复习。我经常在外婆家学习，这样爸爸就不会教训我了。
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “I don’t think I’ll go either way. What if Dad’s right? What if I get brainwashed?”
“没关系，”我说，“反正我也不会去。万一爸爸说得没错呢？如果我被洗脑了怎么办？”
The movie ended. We told Grandma good night. It was a balmy summer evening, perfect for the motorcycle, and Shawn said I should ride home with him, we’d get the car tomorrow. He revved the engine, waiting for me to climb on. I took a step toward him, then remembered the math book on Grandma’s table.
电影看完了，我们跟外婆道别。那是一个温和的夏日夜晚，骑摩托车再合适不过。肖恩说我该坐他的摩托车一起回家，明天再来取车。他发动引擎，等着我坐上去。我朝他迈了一步，然后想起外婆餐桌上的数学书。
I drove in a happy stupor. The night was black — that thick darkness that belongs only in backcountry, where the houses are few and the streetlights fewer, where starlight goes unchallenged. I navigated the winding highway as I’d done numberless times before, racing down the Bear River Hill, coasting through the flat stretch parallel to Fivemile Creek. Up ahead the road climbed and bent to the right. I knew the curve was there without looking for it, and wondered at the still headlights I saw shining in the blackness.
开车回家的路上我心情愉悦，将头脑放空。那是一个漆黑的夜晚——那种黑只属于穷乡僻壤的野外，住户稀少，路灯更少，星光一览无余。我像以前无数次那样，沿着蜿蜒的高速公路穿行，顺着贝尔河山疾驰而下，在与五里溪平行的平坦路段滑行。一路向北爬升，再右转弯。不用看我也知道前方哪里有弯道。所以当见到黑暗中原地闪烁的车前灯时，我暗自纳闷发生了什么事。
“You go,” I said. “I’ll be right behind you.”
“你先走吧，”我说，“我马上就来。”
Shawn yanked his hat down on his head, spun the bike around and charged down the empty street.
肖恩拉下头盔，将摩托车掉头，沿着空荡荡的街道冲了出去。
I began the ascent. There was a pasture to my left, a ditch to my right. As the incline began in earnest I saw three cars pulled off near the ditch. The doors were open, the cab lights on. Seven or eight people huddled around something on the gravel. I changed lanes to drive around them, but stopped when I saw a small object lying in the middle of the highway.
我开始爬坡。我左边是一片牧场，右边是一道沟渠。上了坡，我首先看见三辆车停靠在沟渠旁。车门开着，驾驶室的灯亮着。七八个人凑在路面上的什么东西前。我变换车道避开他们，但当我看见躺在公路中间的一个小小物体，我停下了车。
Shawn’s body was contorted, his back twisted. I had no idea how long an ambulance might take, and there was so much blood. I decided to stop the bleeding. I dug my hands under his shoulder and heaved but I couldn’t lift him. I looked up at the crowd and recognized a face. Dwain. He was one of us. Mother had midwifed four of his eight children.
肖恩身体弯曲，背部扭曲。我不知道救护车多久才能到，血流得太多了。我决定先止血。我将双手伸到他的肩膀下方，抬了一下，但没抬动。我抬头看看人群，认出一张脸。是德万。他是我们自己人。他的八个孩子中有四个是母亲接生的。
It was a wide-brimmed Aussie hat.
那是一顶澳洲宽檐帽。
I pulled over and ran toward the people clustered by the ditch. “Shawn!” I shouted.
我将车停在路边，朝围在沟渠边的人群跑去。“肖恩！”我喊道。
“Dwain! Help me turn him.”
“德万！帮我把他翻过来。”
The crowd parted to let me through. Shawn was facedown on the gravel, lying in a pool of blood that looked pink in the glare from the headlights. He wasn’t moving. “He hit a cow coming around the corner,” a man said. “It’s so dark tonight, he didn’t even see it. We’ve called an ambulance. We don’t dare move him.”
人群分开让我通过。肖恩脸朝下趴在碎石上，躺在一摊血泊中。在车灯的强光下，血呈粉红色。他一动不动。“他撞上了角落里的一头牛。”一个男人说，“天太黑了，他没看见它。我们不敢动他，已经叫了救护车。”
Dwain hefted Shawn onto his back. For a second that contained an hour, I stared at my brother, watching the blood trickle out of his temple and down his right cheek, pouring over his ear and onto his white T-shirt. His eyes were closed, his mouth open. The blood was oozing from a hole the size of a golf ball in his forehead. It looked as though his temple had been dragged on the asphalt, scraping away skin, then bone. I leaned close and peered inside the wound. Something soft and spongy glistened back at me. I slipped out of my jacket and pressed it to Shawn’s head.
德万抬起肖恩，让他脸朝上。一时间，我盯着哥哥，看着血从他的太阳穴汩汩流出来，顺着右脸颊灌进他的耳朵，滴到他的白色T恤上。他双眼紧闭，嘴巴张开。血是从他前额一个高尔夫球般大小的洞里涌出来的。似乎他的太阳穴处被拖在柏油路上，蹭掉了皮肤，露出了骨头。我靠近他，凝视伤口内部。有个柔软的海绵状的东西在反光。我脱下夹克衫，把它按压在肖恩头上。
My cellphone was in my pocket. I dialed. Dad answered.
我的手机在口袋里。我打了电话，是爸爸接的。
“No,” I said. “Dad wants him home. Help me get him in the car.”
“不，”我说，“爸爸想让他回家。帮我把他抬上车。”
“Bring him home,” Dad said. “Your mother will deal with it.”
“把他带回家，”爸爸说，“你母亲会处理的。”
Dwain had overheard. “I live just through this field,” he said. “Your mother can treat him there.”
德万听到了我们的谈话。“穿过这片地就是我家”他说，“你母亲可以去那里给他治疗。”
I must have been frantic, sputtering. I said Shawn had crashed his bike, that he had a hole in his head.
我一定是急疯了，说话语无伦次。我说肖恩骑摩托车撞了，他头上有个洞。
I opened my mouth but no words came out. Finally, I said, “I’m not joking. His brain, I can see it!”
我张开嘴，但一句话也说不出来。最后，我说：“我不是在开玩笑。我都看见他的脑仁了！”
“Bring him home,” Dad said. “Your mother can handle it.” Then: the dull drone of a dial tone. He’d hung up.
“带他回家，”爸爸说，“你母亲能处理。”接着是一阵单调的嘟嘟声。他挂了电话。
Shawn groaned when we lifted him but he didn’t speak again. Someone said we should wait for the ambulance. Someone else said we should drive him to the hospital ourselves. I don’t think anyone believed we would take him home, not with his brain dribbling out of his forehead.
我们将肖恩抱起来时，他呻吟着，但没开口说话。有人说我们应该等救护车，还有人说我们应该自行开车送他去医院。在他的脑仁眼看就从前额里漏出来的情况下，我想没人敢相信我们会把他往家里送。
“Slow down. What happened?”
“慢慢说。发生了什么事？”
“Sidlister,” he mumbled. Then he seemed to lose consciousness.
“小妹。”他咕哝了一句，接着又失去了知觉。
I said it all a second time. “What should I do?”
我又说了一遍：“我该怎么办？”
When I touched the abrasion, Shawn released a long sigh and his eyes opened.
当我摸到擦伤处时，肖恩长长叹了口气，睁开了眼睛。
Three seconds passed, maybe four. That’s all it was.
三秒钟过去了，也许是四秒。就这么定了。
We folded Shawn into the backseat. I got behind the wheel, and Dwain climbed in on the passenger side. I checked my rearview mirror to pull onto the highway, then reached up and shoved the mirror downward so it reflected Shawn’s face, blank and bloodied. My foot hovered over the gas.
我们把肖恩塞进后座。我坐在驾驶位，德万爬上副驾驶座。我检查了一下后视镜，将车开上高速公路，然后抬手把镜子往下一掰，让它反射出肖恩惨白又血迹斑斑的脸。我的脚在油门前犹豫着。
Dwain was shouting, “Let’s go!” but I barely heard him. I was lost to panic. My thoughts wandered wildly, feverishly, through a fog of resentment. The state was dreamlike, as if the hysteria had freed me from a fiction that, five minutes before, I had needed to believe.
德万喊道：“我们走！”但我几乎没听见他在说什么。我惊慌失措。我的思绪在愤恨的迷雾中疯狂又狂热地徘徊。那状态就像做梦一般，就好像那种歇斯底里让我从五分钟前还需要相信的虚构中解脱了出来。
I had never thought about the day Shawn had fallen from the pallet. There was nothing to think about. He had fallen because God wanted him to fall; there was no deeper meaning in it than that. I had never imagined what it would have been like to be there. To see Shawn plunge, grasping at air. To watch him collide, then fold, then lie still. I had never allowed myself to imagine what happened after — Dad’s decision to leave him by the pickup, or the worried looks that must have passed between Luke and Benjamin.
我从未想过肖恩从托盘上摔下来的那一天。没什么可想的。他摔下来是上帝的旨意，没有更深刻的含义。我从未想象过在现场目睹会是什么情影：看到肖恩跌下来，在空中乱抓。见证他撞击地面，蜷缩身体，然后躺着一动不动。我从未允许自己想象之后发生了什么——爸爸决定把他留在皮卡边，或者卢克和本杰明彼此交换担心的目光。
I’d never been to the hospital in town, but it was easy to find.
我从未去过镇上的医院，但是医院很容易找到。
Now, staring at the creases in my brother’s face, each a little river of blood, I remembered. I remembered that Shawn had sat by the pickup for a quarter of an hour, his brain bleeding. Then he’d had that fit and the boys had wrestled him to the ground, so that he’d fallen, sustained a second injury, the injury the doctors said should have killed him. It was the reason Shawn would never quite be Shawn again.
此刻，盯着哥哥脸上的皱纹，每道皱纹都像一条血河，我想起来了。我想起肖恩在皮卡旁坐了一刻钟，他的大脑在出血。然后他就发了疯。男人们将他搏倒在地，他又摔了跤，二次受伤，医生说这次的伤本会要了他的命。这就是为什么肖恩再也不是原来的肖恩。
Dwain had asked me what the hell I was doing when I flipped a U-turn and accelerated down the hillside. I’d listened to Shawn’s shallow breathing as I raced through the valley, along Fivemile Creek, then shot up the Bear River Hill. At the hospital, I parked in the emergency lane, and Dwain and I carried Shawn through the glass doors. I shouted for help. A nurse appeared, running, then another. Shawn was conscious by then. They took him away and someone shoved me into the waiting room.
我将车子掉头加速开下山坡时，德万质问我到底在干什么。我听着肖恩微弱的呼吸，沿着五里溪飞速穿过山谷，然后冲上贝尔河山。到了医院，我把车停在紧急车道上，和德万抬着肖恩穿过玻璃门。我大声呼救。一个护士跑了出来，接着又跑来一个。肖恩那时已经有了意识。他们把他带走了，有人将我推进候诊室。
If the first fall was God’s will, whose was the second?
如果第一次跌倒是上帝的意志，那么第二次又是谁的意志呢？
There was no avoiding what had to be done next. I called Dad.
接下来要做的事不可避免。我打电话给爸爸。
“I’m at the hospital.”
“我在医院。”
“You nearly home?” he said.
“你们快到家了吗？”他说。
There was silence, then he said, “We’re coming.”
一阵沉默，然后他说：“我们马上就来。”
We took Shawn home around three in the morning. Dad drove, with Mother next to him, and I rode in the backseat with Shawn. No one spoke. Dad didn’t yell or lecture; in fact, he never mentioned that night again. But there was something in the way he fixed his gaze, never looking directly at me, that made me think a fork had come along in the road, and I’d gone one way and he the other. After that night, there was never any question of whether I would go or stay. It was as if we were living in the future, and I was already gone.
我们大约在凌晨三点将肖恩接回了家。爸爸开车，母亲坐在他旁边，我和肖恩坐在后座上。没有人说话。爸爸没有喊叫，也没有教训人；事实上，他再也不提那晚的事。但他凝视的眼神意味深长，他不再直视我，让我觉得路上出现了一个岔路口，我走了一条路，而他走了另一条路。那晚之后，对于是去是留我再无疑问。就好像我们正生活在未来，而我早已离开。
Fifteen minutes later they were there, and the three of us waited awkwardly together, me chewing my fingernails on a pastel-blue sofa, Mother pacing and clicking her fingers, and Dad sitting motionless beneath a loud wall clock.
十五分钟后他们赶来了，我们三个人一起等待，气氛有点尴尬。我坐在浅蓝色的沙发上咬着手指甲，母亲来回踱步，不停地打着响指，爸爸则一动不动地坐在一台噪音很大的挂钟下方。
The doctor gave Shawn a CAT scan. He said the wound was nasty but the damage was minimal, and then I remembered what the last doctors had told me — that with head injuries, often the ones that look the worst are actually less severe — and I felt stupid for panicking and bringing him here. The hole in the bone was small, the doctor said. It might grow over on its own, or a surgeon could put in a metal plate. Shawn said he’d like to see how it healed, so the doctor folded the skin over the hole and stitched it.
医生给肖恩做了造影扫描，说伤口很严重，但损伤不大。然后我想起了之前的医生说过的话：对于头部受伤而言，那些看上去最糟糕的情况实际上往往并不严重。惊慌之下带他来到这里，让我觉得自己真蠢。医生说，骨头上的洞很小，很可能自己就会长好，或者可以让外科医生放一块金属板进去。肖恩说他想让伤口自己愈合，于是医生用皮肤把洞遮住，然后缝合。
Sitting across from me is my father, and as I look into his worn face it hits me, a truth so powerful I don’t know why I’ve never understood it before. The truth is this: that I am not a good daughter. I am a traitor, a wolf among sheep; there is something different about me and that difference is not good. I want to bellow, to weep into my father’s knees and promise never to do it again. But wolf that I am, I am still above lying, and anyway he would sniff the lie. We both know that if I ever again find Shawn on the highway, soaked in crimson, I will do exactly what I have just done.
父亲坐在我对面，看着他憔悴的脸，我突然悟出一个强大的事实，不知道为何我以前从未意识到这点。事实是：我不是一个好女儿。我是一个叛徒，羊群中的一匹狼。我有一些地方与众不同，这种不同很不好。我想咆哮，想扑倒在父亲的膝头哭泣，发誓自己再也不这么做了。但我是狼，我还在撒谎，无论如何他会嗅出谎言。我们都心知肚明，如果再看到肖恩躺在公路上，浸泡在血色之中，我还是会做出同样的选择。
I am not sorry, merely ashamed.
我并不后悔，只是感到惭愧。
When I think of that night now, I don’t think of the dark highway, or of my brother lying in a pool of his own blood. I think of the waiting room, with its ice-blue sofa and pale walls. I smell its sterilized air. I hear the ticking of a plastic clock.
现在回想起那个夜晚，我不会想到那条黑暗的公路，也不会想到躺在血泊中的哥哥。我想到的是候诊室冰蓝色的沙发和苍白的墙壁。我闻得到空气中消毒水的味道，听得见塑料钟表的嘀嗒声。
The envelope arrived three weeks later, just as Shawn was getting back on his feet. I tore it open, feeling numb, as if I were reading my sentence after the guilty verdict had already been handed down. I scanned down to the composite score. Twenty-eight. I checked it again. I checked my name. There was no mistake. Somehow — and a miracle was the only way I could account for it — I’d done it.
三个星期后，就在肖恩快要痊愈时，信到了。我麻木地撕开信封，就好像在被判有罪之后，宣读自己的判决书。我扫了一眼总分。二十八分。我又检查了一遍，看了看名字。没错。不知为何——这只能用奇迹来解释——我做到了。
I applied to BYU a week later. I had no idea how to write the application, so Tyler wrote it for me. He said I’d been educated according to a rigorous program designed by my mother, who’d made sure I met all the requirements to graduate.
一周后我向杨百翰大学提出了申请。我不知道如何填写申请表，所以泰勒帮我填了。他写道，我严格按照母亲设计的课程安排接受教育，她已确保我达到高中毕业的所有要求。
My first thought was a resolution: I resolved to never again work for my father. I drove to the only grocery store in town, called Stokes, and applied for a job bagging groceries. I was only sixteen, but I didn’t tell the manager that and he hired me for forty hours a week. My first shift started at four o’clock the next morning.
我的第一个念头是下定决心，再也不为父亲工作了。我开车去了“斯托克斯”——镇上唯一一家杂货店，申请了一份包装杂货的工作。我当时只有十六岁，但我没把年龄告诉经理，于是他雇用我每周工作四十个小时。第二天早上四点我就去上班了。
When I got home, Dad was driving the loader through the junkyard. I stepped onto the ladder and grabbed hold of the rail. Over the roar of the engine, I told him I’d found a job but that I would drive the crane in the afternoons, until he could hire someone. He dropped the boom and stared ahead.
我回到家时，爸爸正开着装载机穿过废料场。我爬上梯子，抓住栏杆。在发动机的轰鸣中，我告诉他我找到了一份工作，但我下午还会开起重机，直到他雇到人。他放下吊杆，盯着前方。
“You’ve already decided,” he said without glancing at me. “No point dragging it out.”
“既然你已经决定了，”他看也没看我一眼，说道，“就没必要拖下去了。”
My feelings about the application changed from day to day, almost from minute to minute. Sometimes I was sure God wanted me to go to college, because He’d given me that twenty-eight. Other times I was sure I’d be rejected, and that God would punish me for applying, for trying to abandon my own family. But whatever the outcome, I knew I would leave. I would go somewhere, even if it wasn’t to school. Home had changed the moment I’d taken Shawn to that hospital instead of to Mother. I had rejected some part of it; now it was rejecting me.
对于申请我的感觉每天都不一样，几乎时时刻刻都在变化。有时我确信上帝希望我去上大学，因为他赐给我二十八分。有时我确信自己会被拒绝，上帝会因我的申请而惩罚我，因为我竟然要弃家人而去。但无论结果如何，我知道我会离开。即使不去上学，我也要去别的地方。从我将肖恩送去医院而不是送他回母亲身边的那一刻，家就已经变了。我拒绝了它的一部分；现在它在拒绝我。
Mother hugged me. Dad tried to be cheerful. “It proves one thing at least,” he said. “Our home school is as good as any public education.”
母亲拥抱了我。爸爸努力摆出一副开心的样子。“这至少证明了一件事，”他说，“我们的家庭教育和公共教育一样好。”
The admissions committee was efficient; I didn’t wait long. The letter arrived in a normal envelope. My heart sank when I saw it. Rejection letters are small, I thought. I opened it and read “Congratulations.” I’d been admitted for the semester beginning January 5.
招生委员会效率很高，没有让我等太久。来信装在一个普通信封里。看到信时，我心里一沉。拒绝信都很小，我心想。打开信封，我看到“恭喜”一词。我被录取了。新学期从一月五日开始。
Three Days Before I turned seventeen, Mother drove me to Utah to find an apartment. The search took all day, and we arrived home late to find Dad eating a frozen supper. He hadn’t cooked it well and it was mush. The mood around him was charged, combustible. It felt like he might detonate at any moment. Mother didn’t even kick off her shoes, just rushed to the kitchen and began shuffling pans to fix a real dinner. Dad moved to the living room and started cursing at the VCR. I could see from the hallway that the cables weren’t connected. When I pointed this out, he exploded. He cussed and waved his arms, shouting that in a man’s house the cables should always be hooked up, that a man should never have to come into a room and find the cables to his VCR unhooked. Why the hell had I unhooked them anyway?
我十七岁生日的三天前，母亲开车送我去犹他州找公寓。我们找了整整一天，很晚才到家，看见爸爸正在吃冷冻食品当晚餐。他没煮好，食物一团糨糊。他周围的气氛充满了火药味，一触即燃。母亲连鞋子都没脱就冲到厨房，拿起平底锅准备一顿真正的晚餐。爸爸移到起居室，开始咒骂录像机。从走廊上我能看到电缆线没接上。我指出这一点时，他勃然大怒。他骂了一声，挥了挥手，喊道，在男人家里，电缆线应该一直处于连接状态，一个男人回到家，永远都不该发现录像机的电缆线没有连上。我到底为什么要拔出它们来？
Then it was gone. I looked up at my father, at his purple face, at the vein pulsing in his neck. I still hadn’t managed to attach the cables. I stood, and once on my feet, didn’t care whether the cables were attached. I walked out of the room. Dad was still shouting when I reached the kitchen. As I moved down the hall I looked back. Mother had taken my place, crouching over the VCR, groping for the wires, as Dad towered over her.
接着慌乱消失了。我抬头看着父亲，看着他酱紫色的脸，看着他脖子上暴跳的青筋。我还是没能把电缆线接上。我站起身来，一旦站起来，我就不在乎电缆线是否连上了。我走出了房间。我走到厨房时，爸爸还在咆哮。我沿着走廊往前走，回头看了看。母亲来到我刚才的位置，蹲在录像机前，摸索着电缆线，而爸爸站在她面前。
Mother rushed in from the kitchen. “I disconnected the cables,” she said.
母亲从厨房冲了进来。“是我拔下来的。”她说。
Dad rounded on her, sputtering. “Why do you always take her side! A man should be able to expect support from his wife!”
爸爸朝她转过身来，唾沫四溅。“你为什么总是站在她那边？一个妻子应该支持自己的丈夫！”
Waiting for christmas that year felt like waiting to walk off the edge of a cliff. Not since Y2K had I felt so certain that something terrible was coming, something that would obliterate everything I’d known before. And what would replace it? I tried to imagine the future, to populate it with professors, homework, classrooms, but my mind couldn’t conjure them. There was no future in my imagination. There was New Year’s Eve, then there was nothing.
那一年等待圣诞节来临就像等待从悬崖边走过。自从千年虫以来，我从未如此确信，某件可怕的事即将发生，它会将我从前认知的一切全部抹杀。取而代之的是什么呢？我试着想象未来，用教授、作业、教室来填充它，但我的大脑无法召唤出那些事物。我的想象中曾经没有未来。只到新年夜，然后就什么都没有了。
I fumbled with the cables while Dad stood over me, shouting. I kept dropping them. My mind pulsed with panic, which overpowered every thought, so that I could not even remember how to connect red to red, white to white.
我摸索着电缆线，而爸爸站在我身边大喊大叫。电缆线一再掉下来。我的心因慌乱而跳动，它压倒了一切想法，以至于我甚至忘了怎样将红色的一头和红色连上，白色的和白色连上。
I knew I should prepare, try to acquire the high school education Tyler had told the university I had. But I didn’t know how, and I didn’t want to ask Tyler for help. He was starting a new life at Purdue — he was even getting married — and I doubted he wanted responsibility for mine.
我知道我该做准备，努力完成泰勒向大学保证的高中教育。但我不知道怎么做，也不想让泰勒帮忙。他在普渡开始了崭新的生活——他甚至要结婚了——我想他并不希望为我的生活负责。
I noticed, though, when he came home for Christmas, that he was reading a book called Les Misérables, and I decided that it must be the kind of a book a college student reads. I bought my own copy, hoping it would teach me about history or literature, but it didn’t. It couldn’t, because I was unable to distinguish between the fictional story and the factual backdrop. Napoleon felt no more real to me than Jean Valjean. I had never heard of either.
但他回家过圣诞节时，我注意到他在读一本叫“悲惨世界”的书。我觉得这肯定在那种大学生必读书目之列，于是也买了一本，希望从中学习一些历史或文学知识。但我没有学到，因为我无法区分虚构的故事和真实的背景。在我看来，拿破仑并不比冉·阿让[23]更真实。这两人我之前都从未听说过。【注：[23]《悲惨世界》的主人公。】
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