西班牙文化之旅

Chapter 8

第8章

By the time I finished eighth grade, Mom had been sober for at least a year, and she’d been dating Matt for two or three years. I was doing well in school, and Mamaw had taken a couple vacations—one trip to California to visit Uncle Jimmy and another to Las Vegas with her friend Kathy. Lindsay had married soon after Papaw’s death. I loved her husband, Kevin, and still do, for a simple reason: He never mistreated her. That’s all I ever wanted in a mate for my sister. Just under a year after their wedding, Lindsay gave birth to her son, Kameron. She was a mom, and a damn good one at that. I was proud of her, and I adored my new nephew. Aunt Wee also had two small children, which gave me three little kids to dote on. I saw all of this as a sign of family renewal. The summer before high school was thus a hopeful one.

到我讀完八年級的時候，媽媽已經清醒了至少一年，她已經和馬特約會了兩三年。我在學校表現很好，媽媽也放了幾個假——一次去加利福尼亞看望吉米叔叔，另一次和她的朋友凱西一起去拉斯維加斯。琳賽在爸爸死後不久就結婚了。我愛她的丈夫凱文，現在仍然如此，原因很簡單：他從未虐待過她。這就是我想要的姐姐的伴侶。婚後不到一年，琳賽生下了她的兒子卡梅隆。她是個媽媽，而且是個該死的好媽媽。我為她感到驕傲，我崇拜我的新侄子。黃阿姨還有兩個小孩，這給了我三個小孩可以寵愛。我把這一切都看作是家庭更新的標誌。因此，高中前的暑假是一個充滿希望的暑假。

That same summer, however, Mom announced that I’d be moving in with Matt in his Dayton home. I liked Matt, and by then Mom had lived in Dayton with him for a little while. But Dayton was a forty-five-minute drive from Mamaw’s, and Mom made it clear that she wanted me to attend school in Dayton. I liked my life in Middletown—I wanted to attend the high school, I loved my friends, and although it was a bit unconventional, I enjoyed splitting time between Mom’s and Mamaw’s houses during the week and hanging out with Dad on the weekends. Importantly, I could always go to Mamaw’s house if I needed to, and that made all the difference. I remembered life when I didn’t have that safety valve, and I didn’t want to go back to those days. Moreover, any move would be without Lindsay and Kameron. So when Mom made her announcement about moving in with Matt, I belted out, “Absolutely not,” and stormed away.

然而，同年夏天，媽媽宣佈我要和馬特一起搬進他代頓的家。我喜歡馬特，那時媽媽已經和他一起在代頓住了一段時間。但代頓離媽媽家有四十五分鐘的車程，媽媽明確表示她希望我在代頓上學。我喜歡我在米德爾敦的生活——我想上高中，我愛我的朋友，雖然這有點不合常規，但我喜歡在一周內在媽媽和媽媽的房子里分配時間，週末和爸爸一起出去玩。重要的是，如果需要，我可以隨時去媽媽家，這讓一切變得不同。我記得我沒有那個安全閥的生活，我不想回到那些日子。此外，任何舉動都將沒有琳賽和卡梅隆。因此，當媽媽宣佈要搬去和馬特同住時，我大聲說，“絕對不會”，然後衝了出去。

Mom drew from this conversation that I had anger problems and scheduled a time for me to meet with her therapist. I didn’t know she had a therapist or the money to afford one, but I agreed to meet with this lady. Our first meeting took place the following week in a musty old office near Dayton, Ohio, where a nondescript middle-aged woman, Mom, and I tried to understand why I was so angry. I recognized that human beings aren’t very good at judging themselves: I may have been wrong that I was no angrier (in fact, considerably less so) than most of the people in my life. Maybe Mom was right and I did have some anger problems. I tried to keep an open mind. If nothing else, I thought, this woman might give Mom and me an opportunity to get everything in the open.

媽媽從這次談話中得知我有憤怒問題，並安排了時間讓我與她的治療師見面。我不知道她有治療師，也沒有錢買得起，但我同意和這位女士見面。接下來的一周，我們的第一次見面在俄亥俄州代頓附近的一間發黴的舊辦公室里舉行，在那裡，一個不起眼的中年婦女，媽媽和我試圖理解我為什麼這麼生氣。我認識到人類並不善於評判自己：我可能錯了，我並不比我生命中的大多數人更生氣（事實上，要少得多）。也許媽媽是對的，我確實有一些憤怒問題。我試著保持開放的心態。我想，如果不出意外的話，這個女人可能會給媽媽和我一個機會，把一切都公開。

But that first session felt like an ambush. Immediately, the woman began asking why I would scream at my mother and storm off, why I didn’t recognize that she was my mother and that I had to live with her by law. The therapist chronicled “outbursts” that I’d allegedly had, some going back to a time I couldn’t remember—the time I threw a tantrum in a department store as a five-year-old, my fight with another child in school (the school bully, whom I didn’t want to punch but did so at Mamaw’s encouragement), the times I’d run from home to my grandparents’ house because of Mom’s “discipline.” Clearly this woman had developed an impression of me based solely on what Mom had told her. If I didn’t have an anger problem before, I did now.

但第一次會議感覺就像是一場伏擊。那個女人立刻開始問我為什麼會對著我母親大喊大叫然後暴走，為什麼我不承認她是我的母親，我必須依法和她住在一起。治療師記錄了我據稱有過的“爆發”，有些可以追溯到我不記得的那段時間——我五歲時在百貨公司發脾氣，我在學校里和另一個孩子打架（學校惡霸，我不想打他，但在媽媽的鼓勵下打了他），我因為媽媽的“管教”而從家裡跑到祖父母家的次數。顯然，這個女人對我的印象完全是基於媽媽告訴她的話。如果我以前沒有憤怒問題，我現在有。

“Do you have any idea what you’re talking about?” I asked. At fourteen, I knew at least a little about professional ethics. “Aren’t you supposed to ask me what I think about things and not just criticize me?” I launched into an hour-long summary of my life to that point. I didn’t tell the whole story, since I knew I had to choose my words carefully: During Mom’s domestic violence case a couple of years earlier, Lindsay and I had let slip some unsavory details about Mom’s parenting, and because it counted as a new revelation of abuse, the family counselor was required to report it to child services. So I didn’t miss the irony of lying to a therapist (to protect Mom) lest I ignite another intervention by the county children’s services. I explained the situation well enough: After an hour, she said simply, “Perhaps we should meet alone.”

你知道你在說什麼嗎？”我問。十四歲時，我至少對職業道德有所瞭解。“難道你不應該問我對事情的看法，而不僅僅是批評我嗎？”那時，我開始對我的生活進行長達一個小時的總結。我沒有說出整個故事，因為我知道我必須謹慎選擇措辭：在幾年前媽媽的家庭暴力案件中，琳賽和我洩露了一些關於媽媽養育子女的令人討厭的細節，因為這算作虐待的新啟示，家庭顧問被要求向兒童服務部門報告。因此，我沒有錯過對治療師撒謊（以保護媽媽）的諷刺意味，以免我引發縣兒童服務機構的另一次干預。我把情況解釋得很清楚：一個小時后，她簡單地說，「也許我們應該單獨見面。

I saw this woman as an obstacle to overcome—an obstacle placed by Mom—not as someone who might help. I explained only half of my feelings: that I had no interest in putting a forty-five-minute barrier between me and everyone I had ever depended on so I could replant myself with a man I knew would be sent packing. The therapist obviously understood. What I didn’t tell her is that for the first time in my life, I felt trapped. There was no Papaw, and Mamaw—a longtime smoker with the emphysema to prove it—seemed too frail and exhausted to care for a fourteen-year-old boy. My aunt and uncle had two young kids. Lindsay was newly married and had a child of her own. I had nowhere to go. I’d seen chaos and fighting, violence, drugs, and a great deal of instability. But I’d never felt like I had no way out. When the therapist asked me what I’d do, I replied that I would probably go live with my dad. She said that this sounded like a good idea. When I walked out of her office, I thanked her for her time and knew that I’d never see her again.

我把這個女人看作是需要克服的障礙——是媽媽設置的障礙——而不是一個可以提供説明的人。我只解釋了我一半的感受：我沒有興趣在我和我曾經依賴的每個人之間設置四十五分鐘的障礙，這樣我就可以重新安置一個我知道會被打包的男人。治療師顯然明白了。我沒有告訴她的是，我有生以來第一次感到被困住了。沒有爸爸，媽媽——一個長期吸煙、患有肺氣腫的人——似乎太虛弱了，筋疲力盡，無法照顧一個十四歲的男孩。我的阿姨和叔叔有兩個年幼的孩子。琳賽新婚不久，有了自己的孩子。我無處可去。我見過混亂和戰鬥、暴力、毒品和大量的不穩定。但我從未覺得自己沒有出路。當治療師問我會做什麼時，我回答說我可能會和我爸爸住在一起。她說這聽起來是個好主意。當我走出她的辦公室時，我感謝她抽出時間，並知道我再也見不到她了。

Mom had a massive blind spot in the way that she perceived the world. That she would ask me to move with her to Dayton, that she seemed genuinely surprised by my resistance, and that she would subject me to such a one-sided introduction to a therapist meant that Mom didn’t understand something about the way that Lindsay and I ticked. Lindsay once told me, “Mom just doesn’t get it.” I initially disagreed with her: “Of course she gets it; it’s just the way she is, something she can’t change.” After the incident with the therapist, I knew that Lindsay was right.

媽媽在感知世界的方式上有一個巨大的盲點。她會要求我和她一起搬到代頓，她似乎真的對我的抗拒感到驚訝，她會讓我接受如此片面的治療師介紹，這意味著媽媽對琳賽和我打勾的方式有些不瞭解。琳賽曾經告訴我，「媽媽就是不明白。我最初不同意她的觀點：「她當然明白;她就是這樣，她無法改變。在與治療師的事件發生后，我知道琳賽是對的。

Mamaw was unhappy when I told her that I planned to live with Dad, and so was everyone else. No one really understood it, and I felt unable to say much about it. I knew that if I told the truth, I’d have a few people offering their spare bedrooms, and all of them would submit to Mamaw’s demand that I live permanently with her. I also knew that living with Mamaw came with a lot of guilt, and a lot of questions about why I didn’t live with my mom or dad, and a lot of whispers from a lot of people to Mamaw that she just needed to take a break and enjoy her golden years. That feeling of being a burden to Mamaw wasn’t something I imagined; it came from a number of small cues, from the things she muttered under her breath, and from the weariness she wore like a dark piece of clothing. I didn’t want that, so I chose what seemed like the least bad option.

當我告訴她我打算和爸爸住在一起時，媽媽很不高興，其他人也是如此。沒有人真正理解它，我覺得不能說太多。我知道，如果我說實話，我會有幾個人提供他們的空餘臥室，他們都會服從媽媽的要求，讓我永遠和她住在一起。我也知道和媽媽住在一起會帶來很多內疚，還有很多關於我為什麼不和媽媽或爸爸住在一起的問題，很多人對媽媽說她只是需要休息一下，享受她的黃金歲月。那種成為媽媽負擔的感覺不是我想像的;它來自一些小線索，來自她低聲嘀咕的東西，來自她穿著像一件深色衣服一樣的疲憊。我不想這樣，所以我選擇了看起來最不壞的選擇。

In some ways, I loved living with Dad. His life was normal in precisely the way I’d always wanted mine to be. My stepmom worked part-time but was usually home. Dad came home from work around the same time each day. One of them (usually my stepmom but sometimes Dad) made dinner every night, which we ate as a family. Before each meal, we’d say grace (something I’d always liked but had never done outside of Kentucky). On weeknights, we’d watch some family sitcom together. And Dad and Cheryl never screamed at each other. Once, I heard them raise their voices during an argument about money, but slightly elevated volumes were far different from screaming.

在某些方面，我喜歡和爸爸住在一起。他的生活很正常，正是我一直希望我的生活。我的繼母做兼職，但通常在家。爸爸每天差不多在同一時間下班回家。其中一個（通常是我的繼母，但有時是爸爸）每天晚上做晚餐，我們一家人一起吃。每頓飯前，我們都會說恩典（我一直很喜歡，但在肯塔基州以外的地方從未做過）。在工作日的晚上，我們會一起看一些家庭情景喜劇。爸爸和謝麗爾從不互相尖叫。有一次，我聽到他們在關於金錢的爭吵中提高了聲音，但稍微高一點的音量與尖叫大不相同。

On my first weekend at Dad’s house—the first weekend I had ever spent with him when I knew that, come Monday, I wouldn’t be going somewhere else—my younger brother invited a friend to sleep over. We fished in Dad’s pond, fed horses, and grilled steaks for dinner. That night, we watched Indiana Jones movies until the early-morning hours. There was no fighting, no adults hurling insults at one another, no glass china shattering angrily against the wall or floor. It was a boring evening. And it epitomized what attracted me to Dad’s home.

在我去爸爸家的第一個週末——這是我和他一起度過的第一個週末，因為我知道星期一我不會去別的地方——我的弟弟邀請了一個朋友過來過夜。我們在爸爸的池塘里釣魚，喂馬，烤牛排當晚餐。那天晚上，我們看了印第安那鐘斯的電影，直到淩晨。沒有打架，沒有成年人互相辱駡，沒有玻璃瓷器憤怒地砸在牆上或地板上。那是一個無聊的夜晚。它集中體現了吸引我到爸爸家的原因。

What I never lost, though, was the sense of being on guard. When I moved in with my father, I’d known him for two years. I knew that he was a good man, a little quiet, a devout Christian from a very strict religious tradition. When we first reconnected, he made it clear that he didn’t care for my taste in classic rock, especially Led Zeppelin. He wasn’t mean about it—that wasn’t his style—and he didn’t tell me I couldn’t listen to my favorite bands; he just advised that I listen to Christian rock instead. I could never tell my dad that I played a nerdy collectible card game called Magic, because I feared he’d think the cards were satanic—after all, kids at the church youth group often spoke of Magic and its evil influence on young Christians. And as most teenagers do, I had so many questions about my faith—whether it was compatible with modern science, for instance, or whether this or that denomination was correct on particular doctrinal disputes.

然而，我從未失去的是警惕感。當我和父親一起搬進來時，我已經認識他兩年了。我知道他是個好人，有點安靜，是一個虔誠的基督徒，有著非常嚴格的宗教傳統。當我們第一次重新聯繫時，他明確表示他不在乎我對經典搖滾的品味，尤其是齊柏林飛艇。他並不刻薄——那不是他的風格——他也沒有告訴我我不能聽我最喜歡的樂隊;他只是建議我聽基督教搖滾樂。我從來不會告訴爸爸，我玩過一個名叫「魔術」的書收藏卡牌遊戲，因為我擔心他會認為這些牌是撒旦的——畢竟，教會青年團體的兒童經常談論魔法及其對年輕基督徒的邪惡影響。和大多數青少年一樣，我對自己的信仰有很多疑問——例如，它是否與現代科學相容，或者這個或那個教派在特定的教義爭議上是否正確。

I doubt he would have gotten upset if I’d asked those questions, but I never did because I didn’t know how he’d respond. I didn’t know whether he’d tell me I was a spawn of Satan and send me away. I didn’t know how much of our new relationship was built on his sense that I was a good kid. I didn’t know how he’d react if I listened to those Zeppelin CDs in his house with my younger siblings around. That not knowing gnawed at me to the point where I could no longer take it.

我懷疑如果我問這些問題，他會生氣，但我從來沒有這樣做，因為我不知道他會如何回應。我不知道他會不會告訴我我是撒旦的後裔，然後把我送走。我不知道我們的新關係有多少是建立在他覺得我是個好孩子的基礎上的。我不知道如果我在他家裡和我的弟弟妹妹一起聽那些齊柏林飛艇的CD，他會有什麼反應。這種不知道啃噬著我，以至於我再也無法忍受。

I think Mamaw understood what was going on in my head, even though I never told her explicitly. We spoke on the phone frequently, and one night she told me that I had to know she loved me more than anything and she wanted me to return home when I was ready. “This is your home, J.D., and always will be.” The next day, I called Lindsay and asked her to come and get me. She had a job, a house, a husband, and a baby. But she said, “I’ll be there in forty-five minutes.” I apologized to Dad, who was heartbroken by my decision. But he understood: “You can’t stay away from that crazy grandma of yours. I know she’s good to you.” It was a stunning admission from a man to whom Mamaw never said a nice word. And it was the first indication that Dad understood the complex and conflicting feelings I’d developed. That meant a great deal to me. When Lindsay and her family came to get me, I got in the car, sighed, and said to her, “Thanks for taking me home.” I gave my infant nephew a kiss on the forehead and said nothing else until we got to Mamaw’s.

我想媽媽明白我腦子裡在想什麼，儘管我從來沒有明確告訴她。我們經常通電話，有一天晚上，她告訴我，我必須知道她愛我勝過一切，她希望我在準備好後回家。“這是你的家，J.D.，永遠都是。第二天，我打電話給琳賽，讓她來接我。她有工作，有房子，有丈夫，有孩子。但她說，“我四十五分鐘后就到。我向爸爸道歉，爸爸對我的決定傷心欲絕。但他明白：「你不能遠離你那個瘋狂的奶奶。我知道她對你很好。這是一個令人震驚的承認，來自一個媽媽從未說過一句好話的人。這是爸爸理解我所形成的複雜而矛盾的感情的第一個跡象。這對我來說意義重大。當琳賽和她的家人來接我時，我上了車，嘆了口氣，對她說：“謝謝你帶我回家。我吻了一下我繈褓中的侄子的額頭，然後什麼也沒說，直到我們到了媽媽家。

I spent the rest of the summer mostly with Mamaw. A few weeks with Dad had given me no epiphanies: I still felt caught between a desire to stay with her and a fear that my presence was depriving her of the comforts of old age. So before my freshman year started, I told Mom that I’d live with her so long as I could stay in Middletown’s schools and see Mamaw whenever I wanted. She said something about needing to transfer to a Dayton school after my freshman year, but I figured we’d cross that bridge in a year, when we had to.

我整個夏天大部分時間都和媽媽在一起。和爸爸在一起的幾個星期並沒有給我頓悟：我仍然感到兩難境地想和她在一起，害怕我的存在剝奪了她老年的舒適感。所以在我大一開始之前，我告訴媽媽，只要我能留在米德爾敦的學校，只要我能見到媽媽，我就會和她住在一起。她說我大一畢業后需要轉學到代頓的一所學校，但我想我們會在一年內跨過那座橋，那時我們必須這樣做。

Living with Mom and Matt was like having a front-row seat to the end of the world. The fighting was relatively normal by my standards (and Mom’s), but I’m sure poor Matt kept asking himself how and when he’d hopped the express train to crazy town. It was just the three of us in that house, and it was clear to all that it wouldn’t work out. It was only a matter of time. Matt was a nice guy, and as Lindsay and I joked, nice guys never survived their encounters with our family.

和媽媽和馬特住在一起，就像坐在世界盡頭的前排座位上一樣。按照我（和媽媽）的標準，戰鬥是相對正常的，但我敢肯定，可憐的馬特一直在問自己，他是如何以及何時跳上特快列車前往瘋狂小鎮的。那所房子里只有我們三個人，所有人都清楚這不會成功。這隻是時間問題。馬特是個好人，正如琳賽和我開玩笑說的那樣，好人從來沒有在與我們家人的相遇中倖存下來。

Given the state of Mom and Matt’s relationship, I was surprised when I came home from school one day early during my sophomore year and Mom announced that she was getting married. Perhaps, I thought, things weren’t quite as bad as I expected. “I honestly thought you and Matt were going to break up,” I said. “You fight every day.” “Well,” she replied, “I’m not getting married to him.”

考慮到媽媽和馬特的關係狀況，當我在大二的一天提前放學回家時，媽媽宣佈她要結婚了，我感到很驚訝。也許，我想，事情並不像我想像的那麼糟糕。“老實說，我以為你和馬特要分手了，”我說。“你每天都在戰鬥。”“好吧，”她回答說，“我不會和他結婚的。

It was a story that even I found incredible. Mom had been working as a nurse at a local dialysis center, a job she’d held for a few months. Her boss, about ten years her senior, asked her out to dinner one night. She obliged, and with her relationship in shambles, she agreed to marry him a week later. She told me on a Thursday. On Saturday we moved into Ken’s house. His home was my fourth in two years.

這是一個連我都覺得不可思議的故事。媽媽在當地一家透析中心當護士，這份工作她已經做了幾個月。一天晚上，她的老闆比她大十歲，約她出去吃飯。她答應了，在她的關係一團糟的情況下，她同意在一周後嫁給他。她在星期四告訴我。星期六，我們搬進了肯的房子。他的家是我兩年來的第四個家。

Ken was born in Korea but raised by an American veteran and his wife. During that first week in his house, I decided to inspect his small greenhouse and stumbled upon a relatively mature marijuana plant. I told Mom, who told Ken, and by the end of the day it had been replaced with a tomato plant. When I confronted Ken, he stammered a bit and finally said, “It’s for medicinal purposes, don’t worry about it.”

Ken 出生於韓國，但由一位美國退伍軍人和他的妻子撫養長大。在他家的第一周，我決定檢查他的小溫室，偶然發現了一株相對成熟的大麻植物。我告訴了媽媽，媽媽也告訴了肯，到一天結束時，它已經被西紅柿植物取代了。當我面對肯時，他有點結結巴巴，最後說：“這是藥用目的，不用擔心。

Ken’s three children—a young girl and two boys about the same age I was—found the new arrangement as strange as I did. The oldest boy fought constantly with Mom, which—thanks to the Appalachian honor code—meant that he fought constantly with me. Shortly before I went to bed one night, I came downstairs just as he called her a bitch. No self-respecting hillbilly could stand idly by, so I made it abundantly clear that I meant to beat my new stepbrother to within an inch of his life. So unquenchable was my appetite for violence that night that Mom and Ken decided that my new stepbrother and I should be separated. I wasn’t even particularly angry. My desire to fight arose more out of a sense of duty. But it was a strong sense of duty, so Mom and I went to Mamaw’s for the night.

肯的三個孩子——一個年輕女孩和兩個和我年齡差不多的男孩——和我一樣覺得這種新安排很奇怪。大男孩經常和媽媽打架，這要歸功於阿巴拉契亞的榮譽守則，這意味著他經常和我打架。一天晚上睡覺前不久，我下樓時，他罵她是婊子。沒有一個有自尊心的鄉巴佬可以袖手旁觀，所以我非常明確地表示，我的意思是要把我的新繼兄弟打到他生命的一英寸以內。那天晚上，我對暴力的慾望是如此的強烈，以至於媽媽和肯決定我和我的新繼兄弟應該分開。我甚至沒有特別生氣。我戰鬥的慾望更多地是出於一種責任感。但這是一種強烈的責任感，所以媽媽和我去媽媽家過夜。

I remember watching an episode of The West Wing about education in America, which the majority of people rightfully believe is the key to opportunity. In it, the fictional president debates whether he should push school vouchers (giving public money to schoolchildren so that they escape failing public schools) or instead focus exclusively on fixing those same failing schools. That debate is important, of course—for a long time, much of my failing school district qualified for vouchers—but it was striking that in an entire discussion about why poor kids struggled in school, the emphasis rested entirely on public institutions. As a teacher at my old high school told me recently, “They want us to be shepherds to these kids. But no one wants to talk about the fact that many of them are raised by wolves.”

我記得看過一集關於美國教育的《西翼》，大多數人理所當然地認為這是機會的關鍵。在書中，虛構的總統辯論他是否應該推動教育券（向學童提供公共資金，以便他們逃離失敗的公立學校），還是只專注於修復那些失敗的學校。當然，這場辯論很重要——在很長一段時間里，我所在的大部分不及格學區都有資格獲得代金券——但令人驚訝的是，在關於為什麼貧困孩子在學校掙扎的整個討論中，重點完全集中在公共機構上。正如我以前高中的一位老師最近告訴我的那樣，“他們希望我們成為這些孩子的牧羊人。但沒有人願意談論他們中的許多人是由狼撫養長大的事實。

I don’t know what happened the day after Mom and I escaped Ken’s to Mamaw’s for the night. Maybe I had a test that I wasn’t able to study for. Maybe I had a homework assignment due that I never had the time to complete. What I do know is that I was a sophomore in high school, and I was miserable. The constant moving and fighting, the seemingly endless carousel of new people I had to meet, learn to love, and then forget—this, and not my subpar public school, was the real barrier to opportunity.

我不知道我和媽媽從肯家逃到媽媽家過夜的第二天發生了什麼。也許我有一個我無法學習的考試。也許我有一個家庭作業，因為我從來沒有時間完成。我所知道的是，我是高中二年級的學生，我很痛苦。不斷的搬家和爭吵，看似無休止的新朋友的旋轉木馬，我必須結識，學會愛，然後忘記——這，而不是我那所不合格的公立學校，才是機會的真正障礙。

I didn’t know it, but I was close to the precipice. I had nearly failed out of my freshmen year of high school, earning a 2.1 GPA. I didn’t do my homework, I didn’t study, and my attendance was abysmal. Some days I’d fake an illness, and others I’d just refuse to go. When I did go, I did so only to avoid a repeat of the letters the school had sent home a few years earlier—the ones that said if I didn’t go to school, the administration would be forced to refer my case to county social services.

我不知道，但我離懸崖很近。我在高中一年級幾乎不及格，GPA 為 2.1。我沒有做作業，沒有學習，出勤率也很糟糕。有些日子我會假裝生病，有些日子我只是拒絕去。當我去的時候，我這樣做只是為了避免重蹈學校幾年前寄回家的覆轍——那些信說，如果我不去上學，行政部門將被迫將我的案子轉介給縣社會服務機構。

Along with my abysmal school record came drug experimentation—nothing hard, just what alcohol I could get my hands on and a stash of weed that Ken’s son and I found. Final proof, I suppose, that I did know the difference between a tomato plant and marijuana.

伴隨著我糟糕的學習成績而來的還有藥物實驗——沒什麼難的，只是我能拿到什麼酒，還有我和肯的兒子找到的一堆大麻。我想，最後的證據是，我確實知道番茄植物和大麻之間的區別。

For the first time in my life, I felt detached from Lindsay. She’d been married well over a year and had a toddler. There was something heroic about Lindsay’s marriage—that after everything she’d witnessed, she’d ended up with someone who treated her well and had a decent job. Lindsay seemed genuinely happy. She was a good mom who doted on her young son. She had a little house not far from Mamaw’s and seemed to be finding her way.

我有生以來第一次感到與琳賽分離。她結婚一年多了，有一個蹣跚學步的孩子。琳賽的婚姻有一些英雄主義的東西——在她目睹了一切之後，她最終得到了一個對她很好並有一份體面工作的人。琳賽似乎真的很開心。她是一個溺愛年幼兒子的好媽媽。她在離媽媽家不遠的地方有一棟小房子，似乎正在找路。

Though I felt happy for my sister, her new life heightened my sense of separation. For my entire existence, we had lived under the same roof, but now she lived in Middletown, and I lived with Ken about twenty miles away. While Lindsay built a life almost in opposition to the one she left behind—she would be a good mother, she would have a successful marriage (and only one)—I found myself mired in the things that both of us hated. While Lindsay and her new husband took trips to Florida and California, I was stuck in a stranger’s house in Miamisburg, Ohio.

雖然我為姐姐感到高興，但她的新生活加劇了我的分離感。在我的一生中，我們一直住在同一個屋簷下，但現在她住在米德爾敦，我和肯住在大約二十英里外。雖然琳賽的生活幾乎與她留下的生活背道而馳——她會成為一個好母親，她會有一個成功的婚姻（而且只有一個）——但我發現自己陷入了我們倆都討厭的事情中。當琳賽和她的新丈夫去佛羅里達和加利福尼亞旅行時，我被困在俄亥俄州邁阿密斯堡的一個陌生人家裡。