Lydia had been wrong about Louisa, of course. Back then, on his daughter’s birthday, James would have laughed at the very idea; the thought of anyone other than Marilyn in his bed, in his life, was preposterous. But back then, the thought of life without Lydia had been preposterous, too. Now both of those preposterous things have come true.
当然，莉迪亚误解了路易莎。那时候，在女儿的生日宴上，詹姆斯还不相信，除了玛丽琳，他这辈子竟然会和别的女人睡觉，如果有人告诉他这个想法，他会觉得荒谬可笑；那时候，同样会让詹姆斯觉得荒谬可笑的是，他们的生活中将不再有莉迪亚。然而现在，这两件荒谬的事情都变成了现实。
When Louisa shuts the apartment door and returns to the bedroom, James is already buttoning his shirt. “You’re going?” she says. Inside, she still clings to the possibility that Marilyn’s visit was just a coincidence, but she is fooling herself, and she knows it.
路易莎关上公寓门回到卧室的时候，詹姆斯已经在系衬衫扣子了。“你要走？”她说。她依旧心存侥幸，希望玛丽琳的造访只是一个巧合。然而，这是自欺欺人，她明白。
James tucks in his shirt and fastens his belt. “I have to,” he says, and they both know this is true, too. “It may as well be now.” He’s not sure what to expect when he reaches home. Sobbing? Rage? A frying pan to the head? He doesn’t know yet, either, what he will say to Marilyn. “I’ll see you later,” he says to Louisa, who kisses his cheek, and this is the one thing he’s sure of.
詹姆斯把衬衫下摆塞进裤腰，扣紧皮带。“我必须走了，”他说，他俩都知道这是实话，“最好现在就走。”他不确定回家之后会发生什么。伤心？愤怒？把平底锅丢到他头上？他不知道，也不知道该对玛丽琳说什么。“再见。”他对路易莎说，她吻了他的脸，只有这句“再见”是他唯一确定的事。
When he enters the house, just after noon, there is no sobbing, no rage — just silence. Nath and Hannah sit side by side on the living room couch, eyeing him warily as he passes through. It is as if they are watching a doomed man march to the gallows, and this is how James himself feels as he climbs the stairs to his daughter’s room, where Marilyn sits at Lydia’s desk, eerily calm. For a long while, she says nothing, and he wills himself still, keeps his hands steady, until she finally speaks.
中午刚过的时候，他走进家门，发现没有哭泣，也没有怒火——只有沉默。内斯和汉娜并排坐在客厅沙发上，在詹姆斯经过时谨慎地看着他，眼神就像看着一个难逃一死的家伙走向绞刑架。詹姆斯爬上楼梯，来到女儿房间的时候，他也有同感。玛丽琳坐在莉迪亚书桌前，平静得诡异。她很长时间都没说话，他强迫自己保持站姿，努力不让双手发抖，直到她终于开口。
Outside, Nath and Hannah crouch on the top step in wordless accord, holding their breath, listening to the voices that carry down the hall.
内斯和汉娜蹲在屋外最高一级楼梯上，不约而同地屏息静气，偷听里面的动静。
“The funeral.” Marilyn, still studying the carpet, presses her lips into a thin line. “She’s very young. How old is she? Twenty-two? Twenty-three?”
“葬礼。”玛丽琳依旧凝视着地毯，紧抿着嘴唇，“她很年轻，多大了？二十二？二十三？”
“Since — the funeral.”
“自从……葬礼。”
“How long?”
“多长时间了？”
Marilyn doesn’t stop it. “She seems sweet. Quite docile — that’s a nice change, I suppose. I don’t know why I’m surprised. I guess you’re long overdue for a trade-in. She’d make a very nice little wife.”
玛丽琳没有停。“她看上去很甜。相当温顺——这是个不错的改变，我觉得。我不知道我为什么会吃惊。我猜，你早就想换人了。她会成为一个不错的小妻子。”
James, to his surprise, blushes. “No one’s talking about –“
詹姆斯惊讶地发现自己脸红了。“没人说过……”
At the mention of Marilyn’s mother, James stiffens, as if he has turned to ice. “Oh, yes. Your poor mother. And then you went and married me.” He chokes out a laugh. “What a disappointment.”
听玛丽琳提到她母亲，詹姆斯僵住了，仿佛全身结了冰。“噢，是的，你可怜的母亲。后来，你走了，嫁给了我。”他干笑一声，“多么令人失望。”
“Not yet. But I know what she wants. Marriage. Husband. I know her type.” Marilyn pauses, remembering her younger self, her mother’s proud whisper: a lot of wonderful Harvard men. “My mother spent her whole life trying to turn me into that type.”
“只是还没说而已。但我知道她想要什么。婚姻。丈夫。我了解她这种人。”玛丽琳顿了顿，想起年轻时的自己，她母亲自豪地低语：很多优秀的哈佛男人。“我母亲一辈子都想把我变成她那种类型的人。”
“Marilyn. Stop it.”
“玛丽琳，别说了。”
“You got tired of different, didn’t you?” he says. “I’m too different. Your mother knew it right away. You think it’s such a good thing, standing out. But look at you. Just look at you.” He takes in Marilyn’s honey-colored hair; her skin, even paler than usual from a month spent indoors. Those sky-colored eyes he has adored for so long, first in his wife’s face and then in his child’s. Things he has never said, never even hinted to Marilyn before, pour from his mouth. “You’ve never been in a room where no one else looked like you. You’ve never had people mock you to your face. You’ve never been treated like a stranger.” He feels as if he has vomited, violently, and he drags the back of his hand across his lips. “You have no idea what it’s like, being different.”
“你厌倦了与众不同，对吗？”他说，“我太与众不同了，你母亲一眼就看出来了。你觉得这是好事，与众不同。但是，看看你，看看你自己。”他抓起玛丽琳蜜色的头发。足不出户一个月，她的皮肤本来就很苍白，现在更白了。她天蓝色的眼睛一直是詹姆斯的最爱，这样的眼睛首先出现在他妻子的脸上，接着又传给他的孩子。詹姆斯把他以前从没说过、甚至从未对玛丽琳暗示过的话都倾倒出来：“你又没有在别人都和你长得不一样的房间里待过，没有人当着你的面嘲笑过你，你也从来没有被人当作外国人对待。”他觉得自己快要吐了，猛地抬起手背挡住嘴，“与众不同——你根本不知道那是什么感觉。”
For a moment James looks young and lonely and vulnerable, like the shy boy she’d met so long ago, and half of Marilyn wants to gather him in her arms. The other half of her wants to batter him with her fists. She gnaws her lip, letting the two sides struggle. “Sophomore year, in the lab, the men used to sneak up behind me and try to lift up my skirt,” she says at last. “One time they came in early and pissed in all of my beakers. When I complained, the professor put his arm around me and said –” The memory catches in her throat, like a burr. “Don’t worry about it, honey. Life’s too short and you’re too beautiful. You know what? I didn’t care. I knew what I wanted. I was going to be a doctor.” She glares at James, as if he has contradicted her. “Then — fortunately — I came to my senses. I stopped trying to be different. I did just what all the other girls were doing. I got married. I gave all that up.” A thick bitterness coats her tongue. “Do what everyone else is doing. That’s all you ever said to Lydia. Make friends. Fit in. But I didn’t want her to be just like everyone else.” The rims of her eyes ignite. “I wanted her to be exceptional.”
在那个瞬间，詹姆斯看上去年轻了许多，既孤独又脆弱，仿佛变回了她多年以前遇到的那个腼腆男孩，玛丽琳既想把他抱在怀里，又希望用拳头揍他。她矛盾地咬着嘴唇。“大二的时候，在实验室，一些男生偷偷溜过来，想要掀我的裙子。”她终于开口了，“一次，他们来得早，在我的烧杯里撒尿。我去告诉教授，教授抱了抱我，说——”记忆让她的声音哽咽起来，“‘别担心，亲爱的。人生太短，而你太美。’你知道吗？我不在乎，我知道我想要什么，我要成为医生。”她看了詹姆斯一眼，似乎他刚刚反驳了她，“然后——我醒悟过来，再也不标新立异，我只做其他女孩都在做的事情。我结了婚，我放弃了一切。”浓郁的苦涩粘住了她的舌头，“做别人都在做的事。你一直都这么告诉莉迪亚，交朋友、适应环境。但是，我不希望她和别人一样。”她的眼角精光闪烁，“我希望她出类拔萃。”
“I am disappointed.” Marilyn’s head snaps up. “I thought you were different.” What she means is: I thought you were better than other men. I thought you wanted better than that. But James, still thinking of Marilyn’s mother, hears something else.
“是我失望。”玛丽琳猛地抬起头，“我以为你和别人不同。”她的意思是：我以为你比其他男人好。我以为你想要比他们好。但是，詹姆斯依旧在想着玛丽琳的母亲，他会错了意。
“Well, now you can marry this one,” Marilyn says. “She seems like the serious type. You know what that means.” She holds up her left hand, where the wedding ring glints dully. “A girl like that wants the whole package. Matchbox house, picket fence. Two-point-three kids.” She lets out one hard, sharp, terrifying bark of a laugh, and out on the landing, Hannah hides her face against Nath’s arm. “I suppose she’ll be more than happy to trade student life for all that. I just hope she doesn’t regret it.”
“好了，现在，你可以和她结婚了。”玛丽琳说，“她看上去像个正经人，你知道这是什么意思。”她举起左手，婚戒闪出幽光，“这样的女孩，想要的是全套：一座带篱笆的小房子，两三个孩子。”她发出一声突兀、尖利、恐怖的冷笑。楼梯平台上，汉娜把脸靠向内斯的手臂。“我猜，为了这些，她一定乐意放弃学业。我只希望她不要后悔。”
On the stairs, Hannah holds her breath. She is afraid to move anything, even a fingertip. Maybe if she stays perfectly still, her parents will stop talking. She can hold the world motionless, and everything will be all right.
楼梯上，汉娜屏住呼吸，一动也不敢动——包括手指。说不定要是她坚持不动，她父母就能停止争吵，这样她就能维持世界和平，确保一切安然无恙。
A sudden and stunned silence. Though Hannah’s face is still pressed into Nath’s shoulder, she can picture her mother exactly: her face frozen, the rims of her eyes a deep red. If she cries, Hannah thinks, it won’t be tears. It will be little drops of blood.
一阵突如其来的静默。虽然汉娜的脸仍然压在内斯的肩膀上，她还是想象得出母亲现在的样子：面孔僵硬，眼圈深红。如果她哭的话，汉娜想，不会有眼泪，只能哭出血来。
At this word — regret — something in James flares. A hot biting smell, like overheating wires, pricks his nostrils. “Like you do?”
听到这个词——后悔——詹姆斯心中燃起怒火，他似乎嗅到了电线烧融的味道：“就像你一样？”
James touches his pocket for his keys, then realizes they are still in his hand: he had not even put them down. As if he had known inside, all along, that he would not be staying.
詹姆斯摸摸口袋，想找钥匙，发现它们还在他的手里，他都没来得及放下。他似乎一直都知道，自己不会留下来。
“Let’s pretend,” he says, “that you never met me. That she was never born. That none of this ever happened.” Then he is gone.
“让我们假装，”他说，“你从来没遇见我，她从来没出生。这些都没有发生过。”然后，他就走了。
“Get out,” Marilyn says at last. “Get out of this house.”
“出去，”玛丽琳最后说，“滚出这座房子。”
Out on the landing, there is no time to run: Hannah and Nath have not even stood up when their father emerges into the hallway. At the sight of his children, James stops short. It is clear they’ve heard everything. For the past two months, every time he sees one of them, he sees a fragment of their missing sister — in the tilt of Nath’s head, in the long sweep of hair half screening Hannah’s face — and he leaves the room abruptly, without truly understanding why. Now, with both of them watching, he edges past, not daring to meet their eyes. Hannah presses herself to the wall, letting their father pass, but Nath stares straight at him, silently, with a look James can’t quite parse. The sound of his car as it whines out of the driveway, then speeds away, has the ring of finality; all of them hear it. Silence settles over the house like ash.
楼梯平台上的汉娜和内斯没有时间逃跑了，他们还没站起来，詹姆斯就冲到走廊里。看到两个孩子，他短暂停留了一下。显然，他们全听到了。过去的两个月，每当他看到内斯或汉娜，就好像看到了莉迪亚的某个部分——内斯歪着的头，汉娜半遮着脸的长发——每当这时，他会突然离开房间。他并不真的清楚自己这样做的原因。现在，在他们俩的注视之下，他侧身向前移动，不敢看他们的眼睛。汉娜贴在墙上给父亲让路，但内斯直视着他，一言不发，詹姆斯无法理解儿子现在的表情，悻然离去。外面传来汽车倒出车道的哀鸣，然后是加速的声音和告别的鸣笛；他们都听见了。沉寂如尘土一般覆盖了整座房子。
“Wait,” Hannah calls, out loud this time. She is not sure whether he is chasing their father or if he is running away as well, but she knows that what he has planned is dreadful. “Nath. Wait. Don’t.”
“等等。”汉娜大声叫道。她不确定内斯是去追詹姆斯还是也想离家出走，但她知道，他的计划非常可怕。“内斯，等等，别去。”
Upstairs, Marilyn hears none of this. She shuts the door of Lydia’s room, and a thick, heavy quiet wraps itself around her like a smothering blanket. With one finger, she strokes Lydia’s books, the neat binders in a row, each labeled in marker with the class and date. A coarse fur of dust now coats everything — the row of blank diaries, the old science fair ribbons, the pinned-up postcard of Einstein, the covers of each binder, the spines of each book. She imagines emptying Lydia’s room piece by piece. The tiny holes and unfaded patches that will mar the wallpaper when the posters and pictures come down; the carpet, crushed beneath the furniture, that will never rise again. Like her own mother’s house after everything had been cleared away.
楼上的玛丽琳对此一无所知。她关上莉迪亚的房门，整个房间像一块厚重的毛毯，让她无法呼吸。她的手指在莉迪亚的书本上划动，还有那些整齐排列的文件夹，每个夹子上都用记号笔标注了类别和日期。现在，屋子里的所有东西都蒙上了一层粗糙的灰尘：那排空白日记、墙上的科学展览绶带、爱因斯坦明信片、文件夹的外皮、每本书的书脊。玛丽琳想，要是一点点清空这间屋子的话，摘下那些海报和照片之后，墙纸上会出现无数小洞，变得非常难看。还有地毯，它已经被家具压得坑坑洼洼，再也不会恢复原形，就像她母亲家里清空之后那样。
He doesn’t wait. He backs out of the garage, nicking the lilac bush beside the door, and then he, too, is gone.
内斯没有停步，他把车倒出车库，刮到了门边的丁香花，然后也走了。
Then Nath leaps to his feet. Stop, Hannah wants to say, but she knows Nath won’t. Nath pushes Hannah aside. His mother’s keys dangle from their hook in the kitchen, and he takes them and heads for the garage.
这时，内斯突然跳起来。别走，汉娜想说，但是她知道内斯不会听她的。内斯把汉娜推到一边，他母亲的车钥匙就挂在厨房里，他拿下钥匙，走向车库。
She thinks of her mother coming home alone all those years to an empty house, the bedroom kept just as it was, with fresh bedsheets, for the daughter who would never return, her husband long since gone, in some other woman’s bed now. You loved so hard and hoped so much and then you ended up with nothing. Children who no longer needed you. A husband who no longer wanted you. Nothing left but you, alone, and empty space.
她想起她的母亲，那些年里，她一个人守着一座空房子生活，除了卧室的床单是新的，别的东西都没有变化，因为她女儿再也不会回来，她丈夫也早就消失，现在睡在别的女人床上。你曾经爱得那么深，怀有那么多的期望，最后却一无所有。孩子不再需要你，丈夫不再想要你，最后只剩下你自己，还有空荡荡的房间。
With one hand, she pulls Einstein from the wall and tears him in two. Then the periodic table, useless now. She yanks the earpieces from Lydia’s stethoscope; she ravels the prize ribbons to satin shreds. One by one she topples the books from the shelf. The Color Atlas of Human Anatomy. Women Pioneers of Science. With each one, Marilyn’s breath becomes more fierce. How Your Body Works. Chemistry Experiments for Children. The Story of Medicine. She remembers every single one. It is like rewinding time, working her way backward through Lydia’s entire life. An avalanche piles up at her feet. Downstairs, huddled beneath the hall table, Hannah hears heavy thumps, like stone after stone thudding to the floor.
她伸出一只手，把爱因斯坦从墙上揪下来撕成两半，然后是元素周期表，它现在毫无用处。她猛地扯过莉迪亚听诊器上的听筒，把曾经作为奖品的绶带绞成碎片，把书架上的书一本本地推倒。《人体解剖学彩色图集》《科学界的女先驱者》，每推倒一本，玛丽琳的怒火就蹿高一点。《你的身体是如何工作的》《儿童化学实验》《医学的故事》，她记得每本书背后的故事，犹如时间倒流，莉迪亚的一生在她眼前重放，书堆在她脚边崩塌。楼下，蜷缩在走廊桌子底下的汉娜静静地听着楼上“砰砰”的声音，仿佛一块接一块的石头砸在了地板上。
And there, in the hollow below the bottom shelf: a book. Thick. Red. A Scotch-taped spine. Even before Marilyn sees the photo, she knows what it is. But she turns it over anyway, with suddenly unsteady hands, still astonished to find Betty Crocker’s face implausibly, impossibly staring up at her.
这时，书架底下的空间里出现了一本书：厚厚的，红色封皮，书脊上贴着透明胶带。无需看到封底的照片，玛丽琳就认出了它。她用突然变得颤抖的双手打开书，贝蒂·克罗克的脸赫然又出现在她面前，凝视着她。
At last, perched in the far corner of the bookcase: the very first book Marilyn had ever bought for Lydia. Slender as a pamphlet, it teeters alone on the shelf, then tips. Air hovers all around you, the splayed pages read. Though you can’t see it, it is still there. Marilyn wants to burn the books that litter the carpet, to peel the wallpaper from the walls. Everything that reminds her of Lydia and all she could have been. She wants to stomp the very bookshelf to splinters. Stripped bare, it lists unsteadily, as if it is tired, and with one push she knocks it to the floor.
最后，轮到了书架最边上的一本书：玛丽琳买给莉迪亚的第一本书。它像小册子一样薄，先是独自在书架上簌簌发抖，接着就歪到一边。空气无所不在，展开的书页上写着，盘旋萦绕在你的周围。尽管你看不见它，它还是在那里。玛丽琳希望烧掉这些书，把墙纸剥下来，清除所有可能让她想起莉迪亚的东西。她想把书架踩成碎片。因为书都堆在了地上，书架摇摇欲坠，仿佛疲惫不堪，她轻轻一推，它就轰然倒地。
Your cookbook, Lydia had said. I lost it. Marilyn had been thrilled, had considered it an omen: her daughter had read her mind. Her daughter would never be confined to a kitchen. Her daughter wanted more. It had been a lie. She flips the pages she has not seen in years, tracing her mother’s pencil marks with her fingertip, smoothing the pockmarked pages where she had cried all those nights, in the kitchen, alone. Somehow Lydia had known: that this book had pulled on her mother like a heavy, heavy stone. She hadn’t destroyed it. She had hidden it, all those years; she had piled book after book atop it, weighting it down, so her mother would never have to see it again.
“你的烹饪书，”莉迪亚曾经说，“我给扔了。”玛丽琳当时有些激动，因为她觉得这是一个预兆——她的女儿读懂了她的心；她的女儿永远不会被局限在厨房里；她的女儿想要更多。原来，她骗了她。她翻动着多年没有见过的书页，手指描摹着她母亲画下的铅笔线，摩挲着她晚上在厨房独自哭泣时打湿纸面的痕迹。不知怎的，莉迪亚知道，这本书像一块极其沉重的大石头，对她的母亲有着巨大的吸引力。她并没有破坏它，而是把它藏起来，藏了这么多年。她在它上面堆起一排又一排的书，用它们的重量压着它，这样，她母亲就不用再看到它了。
And then, as if the tears are telescopes, she begins to see more clearly: the shredded posters and pictures, the rubble of books, the shelf prostrate at her feet. Everything that she had wanted for Lydia, which Lydia had never wanted but had embraced anyway. A dull chill creeps over her. Perhaps — and this thought chokes her — that had dragged Lydia underwater at last.
玛丽琳眼中的泪水仿佛变成了望远镜，她开始看得更加清楚：撕碎的海报和图片、散乱的书本、倒伏在她脚边的书架，它们代表着她对莉迪亚的每一个期望，莉迪亚并不想要，但是却接受了它们。一阵钝重的寒意逐渐爬遍她全身。也许——她呼吸困难地想——也许，最后正是它们把莉迪亚拖到了湖底。
Lydia, five years old, standing on tiptoe to watch vinegar and baking soda foam in the sink. Lydia tugging a heavy book from the shelf, saying, Show me again, show me another. Lydia, touching the stethoscope, ever so gently, to her mother’s heart. Tears blur Marilyn’s sight. It had not been science that Lydia had loved.
莉迪亚五岁的时候，会扒在水池边观察醋和小苏打中和反应生成的泡沫。莉迪亚从书架上拖下一本厚重的书，说：“再给我讲讲。”莉迪亚轻轻地把听诊器放在母亲胸口。泪水模糊了玛丽琳的视线。其实，莉迪亚自始至终，爱的并不是科学。
The door creaks open, and Marilyn slowly raises her head, as if Lydia might somehow, impossibly, appear. For a second the impossible happens: a small blurred ghost of little-girl Lydia, dark-haired, big-eyed. Hesitating in the doorway, clinging to the jamb. Please, Marilyn thinks. In this word is all she cannot phrase, even to herself. Please come back, please let me start over, please stay. Please.
门“吱呀”一声开了，玛丽琳缓缓抬起头，仿佛莉迪亚会突然出现似的。恍惚之间，这一幕似乎真的发生了。那是一个矮小一些的模糊身影，酷似小时候的莉迪亚，深色头发，大眼睛，她迟疑地站在走廊里，抓着门框。拜托，玛丽琳想，她现在只想说这些，请你回来，请让我重新开始，请留下。拜托。
Across town, at the liquor store, Nath sets a fifth of whiskey on the counter. He has tasted alcohol exactly once in his life: at Harvard, his host student had offered him a beer. He’d gulped down four, more excited by the idea of it than the flavor — it had tasted, to him, like fizzy urine — and for the rest of the evening, the room had wobbled slightly on its axis. Now he wants the world to spin loose and careen away.
镇子另一头，内斯在一家卖酒的商店里，把一瓶750毫升的威士忌搁在柜台上。在此之前，他只喝过一次酒，在哈佛的时候，接待他的那个学生给过他一瓶啤酒。他一连喝了四口，与其说是酒的味道，还不如说是喝酒这个念头本身让他更兴奋——他觉得，啤酒尝起来像带着泡沫的尿液——然后，整个房间就在他面前摇晃了一晚上。现在，他非常想要全世界都在他眼前旋转，来个底朝天。
Then she blinks, and the figure sharpens: Hannah, pale and trembling, her face glossy with tears.
然后，她眨了眨眼，那个身影清晰起来——汉娜，苍白，颤抖，脸上布满泪痕。
“Mom,” she whispers.
“妈妈。”她嗫嚅道。
The man behind the counter studies Nath’s face, then squints at the bottle of whiskey. Nath’s fingers twitch. At eighteen, he is allowed to buy only three-two beer, that watery stuff his classmates chugged at parties. But 3.2 percent isn’t strong enough for what he needs now. The clerk eyes him again and Nath prepares himself: Go home, sonny, you’re too young for this stuff.
柜台后面的男人打量着内斯的脸，然后瞥了一眼威士忌酒瓶。内斯的手指开始颤抖。按照法律，十八岁的他只能买到酒精浓度3.2%的啤酒——就是他的同学在派对上当水喝的那种淡而无味的液体。3.2%显然无法满足他现在的需求。店员又看了他一眼，内斯以为他会说：“回家吧，小伙子，你太年轻了，不能喝这种酒。”
Without thinking, Marilyn opens her arms, and Hannah stumbles into them.
玛丽琳毫不犹豫地张开双臂，汉娜踉跄着跌进她的怀抱。
Instead the clerk says, “Your sister that girl who died?”
然而，店员问：“你妹妹就是死的那个女孩？”
Nath’s throat goes raw, like a wound. He nods, focusing on the shelf behind the counter, where cigarettes rise in neat red-and-white stacks.
内斯觉得喉咙疼，仿佛那里有个伤口。他点点头，盯着柜台后面的架子，那里堆着很多香烟，盛在红白相间的烟盒里。
Then the clerk takes down a second bottle of whiskey and puts it in a bag with the first. He slides the bag toward Nath, along with the ten-dollar bill Nath has set on the counter.
店员又拿下一瓶威士忌，把它和第一瓶一起放进袋子里递给内斯，同时把内斯放在柜台上的那张十美元纸币也还给了他。
“Good luck to you,” he says, and turns away.
“祝你好运。”说完，他就将脸别了过去。
The quietest spot Nath knows is out on the edge of town, near the county line. He parks by the side of the road and pulls out one of the bottles. One gulp of whiskey, then another, burns its way down, and he pictures it torching away everything raw and red and painful inside him. It’s almost one, and by the time the first bottle is gone, only one car has passed by, a dark-green Studebaker with an old lady at the wheel. The whiskey isn’t working the way he’d hoped. He’d thought it would wipe his mind clean, like a sponge on a blackboard, but instead the world sharpens with each swallow, dizzying him with its details: the spatter of mud on the driver’s side mirror; the last digit of the odometer, frozen between 5 and 6; the stitching in the car seat, just beginning to fray. A stray leaf, caught between windshield and wiper, rattles in the breeze. As he works through the second bottle, he thinks, suddenly, of his father’s face as he’d walked out the door: the way he hadn’t even glanced at them, as if he were focused on something far-off on the horizon or deep, deep in the past. Something neither he nor Hannah could see, something they couldn’t touch even if they’d wanted to. The air inside the car grows thick, filling his lungs like cotton. Nath cranks the window down. Then — as the cool breeze rushes in — he pitches over the side and vomits both bottles of whiskey onto the curb.
内斯知道的最安静的地方，在镇子外面的县界附近。他把车停在路边，掏出一瓶威士忌大口大口地喝下去，让酒液烧灼他的喉管，烧光他身体内部所有红肿疼痛的地方。现在还不到下午一点钟，到第一瓶酒喝完的时候，他统共只看到一辆车经过，那是辆深绿色的斯蒂庞克，开车的是个老太太。威士忌并没有如他所愿地生效，他本以为它能彻底抹掉自己的记忆，像海绵擦黑板那样，然而，每咽下一口酒，眼前的世界就又清晰一分，各种细节令他眩晕：驾驶座旁边的后视镜上的泥点子，里程计的最后一位读数停滞在5和6之间，车座上的针脚已经开始磨损了；一片树叶夹在挡风玻璃和雨刷之间，在微风中颤抖。解决第二瓶的时候，他突然想起父亲出门时的表情。他甚至都没看他们一眼，仿佛只关注某个远在地平线以外、或者存在于过去的东西，而他和汉娜都没有见过它，更不可能碰触它。车厢里变得憋闷起来，他的肺如同棉花。内斯摇下车窗，凉爽的微风吹了进来，他扒住车门，把两瓶威士忌都吐在了路沿上。
How appropriate, he thinks. Toledo. It strikes him that there is a beautiful symmetry to life. Ten years ago, Marilyn had fled here, leaving everything behind. Now it is his turn. He takes a deep breath and presses the pedal more firmly. He has said it at last, what he had been most afraid to say, what she had most longed to hear: Pretend that you never met me. That none of this ever happened. He has undone the great mistake of her life.
多么恰如其分，他想，托莱多，人生的对称性真是美得不可思议。十年前，玛丽琳抛弃一切，躲到这里。现在轮到他了。他深吸一口气，更加坚定地踩下油门。他终于说出来了，那原本是他最害怕说出来的话，恐怕也是她最想听到的：假装你从来没遇见我，这一切都没发生过。他已经纠正了她人生中最大的错误。
In his own car, James too mulls over that moment on the stairs. After he’d pulled out of the driveway, he had driven without thinking, jamming his foot onto the gas pedal, heading wherever he can slam his foot to the floor. This is how he finds himself driving not back to Louisa’s, but across town, right past campus, onto the highway, nudging the needle to sixty, sixty-five, seventy. Only when a sign — Toledo 15 miles — flashes wide and green overhead does he realize how far he’s gone.
詹姆斯也在车里回忆起楼梯上的那一幕。倒出车库后，他茫然地开着车，脚一直放在油门上。他的目标是开到一个能让他把踏板踩到底的地方，所以，他发觉自己并没有回去找路易莎，而是穿过镇子，经过学校，上了公路，车速表的指针从六十、六十五跳到七十。当绿色指示牌“托莱多，15公里”出现在头顶时，他才意识到自己开出了多远。
Except — and he can’t deny this, no matter how he tries — Marilyn had not seemed grateful. She had flinched, as if he’d spat in her face. She had bitten her lips once, twice, as if swallowing a hard, painful seed. The car veers toward the shoulder, gravel shuddering under its wheels.
然而——他无法否认这一点——玛丽琳看上去并不感激。她退缩了，好像怕他啐在她脸上似的。她连咬两次嘴唇，仿佛吞下一颗坚硬痛苦的种子。汽车朝路肩上开去，砾石在车轮下颤抖震荡。
She left first, James reminds himself, nudging the car to the center of the road again. This is what she’s wanted all along. Yet even as he thinks this, he knows it is untrue. The yellow line wavers and weaves. To James, years of unabashed stares prickling his spine, as if he were an animal in the zoo, years of mutters in the street — chink, gook, go home — stinging his ears, different has always been a brand on his forehead, blazoned there between the eyes. It has tinted his entire life, this word; it has left its smudgy fingerprints on everything. But different had been different for Marilyn.
是她先离开的，詹姆斯提醒自己，他把车拉回路中央。这一直都是她想要的。但是，虽然他这么想，但他知道这不是真的。黄线摇摇晃晃。詹姆斯承受了多年别人不加掩饰的打量，他们似乎把他当成了动物园里的动物，他听够了路人的窃窃私语——中国佬，滚回家——“与众不同”一直是他脑门上的烙印，在两眼之间闪闪发光，这个词影响了他的一生，它在每件事上都留下了肮脏的手印。然而，“与众不同”在玛丽琳眼中却具有不同含义。
Marilyn: young and unafraid in a classroom of men. Draining the urine from her flasks, plugging her ears by filling her head with dreams. A white blouse in a sea of navy-blue blazers. How she had longed for different: in her life, in herself. It is as if someone has lifted his world and turned it sideways and set it down again. Marilyn, packing those dreams away in lavender for their daughter, disappointment layered beneath her smile. Triply sequestered by house and dead-end street and tiny college town, her hands soft and uncalloused but idle. The intricate gears of her mind ticking silently at no one, thoughts pinging the closed windows like a trapped bee. And now, alone in their daughter’s room, surrounded by the relics of their daughter’s life, no lavender, only dust, in the air. It has been so long since he thought of his wife as a creature of want.
玛丽琳年轻时，在一屋子男生面前毫无畏惧。她倒出烧杯里的尿液，用梦想堵住她的耳朵。她是蓝色运动衣海洋中的一袭白色女衫。她一直追求“不同”：生活与自我的标新立异。好比一个人举起他的世界，转动了一下，然后又放回地面。后来，失意的玛丽琳为了他们的女儿，将梦想夹在薰衣草间小心埋藏。囚禁在米德伍德死胡同般的小街上的那座房子里，她的野心无法施展。她脑中错综复杂的齿轮不为任何人旋转，纵有无数想法，也像困在窗户里面的蜜蜂，得不到实现。现在，她独自待在女儿的房间，被各种遗物包围，没有什么薰衣草，空气中有的，只是尘埃。詹姆斯很久以前就觉得，妻子是为了她的各种心愿而活的。
Later — and for the rest of his life — James will struggle to piece words to this feeling, and he will never quite manage to say, even just to himself, what he really means. At this moment he can think only one thing: how was it possible, he wonders, to have been so wrong.
后来，在詹姆斯的余生中，他都在竭力修补这种感觉，他再也无法解释自己的真实意图，哪怕是对他自己。在这一刻，他能想到的只有一件事：到底怎么会的，他寻思着，怎么会错得如此彻底。
Back in Middlewood, Nath does not know how long he lies there, sprawled across the front seat. All he knows is this: someone opens the car door. Someone calls his name. Then a hand grips his shoulder, warm and gentle and strong, and it doesn’t let go.
在米德伍德，内斯不清楚自己在前座躺了多久。他只知道，有人打开了他的车门，有人叫了他的名字，然后，一只手抓住他的肩膀，温暖、轻柔、有力，没有松开。
To Nath, fighting through a deep and groggy stupor, the voice sounds like his father’s, though his father has never spoken his name so softly, or touched him with such tenderness. In the moment before he opens his eyes, it is his father, and even when the world comes into focus to reveal hazy sunshine, a police cruiser, Officer Fiske crouching beside him in the open car door, it is still true. It is Officer Fiske who peels the empty whiskey bottle from his fingers and helps him lift his head, but in his heart it is his father who says, with such kindness that Nath begins to cry, “Son, it’s time to go home.”
烂醉如泥的内斯觉得，那人的声音像他的父亲，尽管父亲从未如此温和地叫他的名字，或者那样小心地触碰他。睁开眼之前，他认为那就是他的父亲，即便是朦胧的阳光射入他的眼帘，他发现一辆警车停在旁边，菲斯克警官顺着敞开的车门探进身体的时候，他仍然认定刚才就是他的父亲。显然，是菲斯克警官拿走内斯手中的空瓶，扶起了他的头，但是，在他的印象中，刚才是父亲对他说“孩子，该回家了”，想到这里，内斯哭了起来。
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