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They hadn’t been what she wanted.
这不是她想要的。
If her mother ever came home and told her to finish her milk, she thought, the page wavering to a blur, she would finish her milk.
如果母亲回家告诉她喝完牛奶，她想自己会把牛奶喝完。
She would brush her teeth without being asked and stop crying when the doctor gave her shots.
她会主动刷牙，会在医生给她打针的时候停止哭泣。
She would go to sleep the second her mother turned out the light.
母亲一关灯，她就乖乖睡觉。
She would never get sick again.
她再也不会生病了。
She would do everything her mother told her.
母亲叫她做什么她就做什么。
Everything her mother wanted.
母亲要求的一切她都会完成。
Far off in Toledo, Marilyn did not hear the silent promise her young daughter was making.
在遥远的托莱多，玛丽琳没有听到她年幼的女儿做出的无声的承诺。
On the third of July, while Lydia huddled beneath the dining table, Marilyn bent over a new book: Advanced Organic Chemistry.
7月3日，莉迪亚蜷缩在餐桌下时，玛丽琳正在埋头看一本新书:《高等有机化学》。
Her midterm was in two days, and she had been studying all morning.
期中考试还有两天，她整个上午都在学习。
With her notebook in hand, Marilyn felt like an undergraduate again; even her signature had gone soft and round, like it had been before she married, before her handwriting stiffened and tightened.
手里拿着笔记本，玛丽琳觉得自己又像个大学生了。甚至签名也像婚前那样变得又软又圆，婚后却又硬又紧。
All the other students in her course were college kids, some diligently trying to get ahead, some reluctantly trying to catch up from failed classes and bad semesters.
课上的其他学生都是大学生，有些人努力想出人头地，一些学生不情愿地试图从挂科的课程和糟糕的学期中迎头赶上。
To her surprise, they treated her no differently than they treated each other: quiet, polite, focused.
令她惊讶的是，他们对她和对待普通大学生没有什么不同，安静、礼貌又专注。
In the cool lecture hall, they all sketched molecules, labeling them ethyl, methyl, propyl, butyl; at the end of the class, they compared notes and hers were exactly the same: beautiful little hieroglyphs of hexagons and lines.
在很酷的教室里，他们都画了分子图，标上乙基、甲基、丙基、丁基；下课后，他们交换了笔记，她的笔记完全一样，上面是美丽的六边形和线条的象形文字。
Proof, she told herself, that I’m just as smart as the others. That I belong.
她告诉自己：我和其他人一样聪明，我属于这里。
Yet often, when she opened her books, Marilyn’s mind whirled.
然而，每当玛丽琳打开书本时，头脑总是一片混乱。
Equations jumbled and rejumbled, hidden messages jumping out at her.
方程式一堆又一堆，隐藏的信息向她扑来。
NaOH became Nath, his small face wide-eyed and reproachful.
氢氧化钠变成了纳的名字，他怒目圆睁，满是责备。
One morning, consulting the periodic table, instead of helium she thought He and James’s face floated up in her mind.
一天早上，她查了一下元素周期表，发现脑海里浮现的不是氦，而是他和詹姆斯的脸。
Other days, the messages were more subtle: a typo in the textbook—“the common acids, egg. nitric, acetic . . .”—left her in tears, thinking of hard-boiled, sunny-side up, scrambled.
而在其他日子里，这些信息则更加微妙：教科书里有个错别字——“常见的酸，卵，硝酸，醋酸…”——她哭了，想到的是水煮蛋、煎蛋和炒蛋。
At these times she slipped her fingertips into her pocket for the barrette, the marble, the button.
这时，她就把指尖伸进口袋，去拿发夹、弹珠和钮扣。
She turned them over and over until again her mind was smooth.
她翻来覆去地翻了一遍又一遍，直到重新平静下来。
Some days, though, even these talismans lost their power.
然而，有时这些护身符也会失去魔力。
Two weeks after she left home, she woke in her rented twin bed, her body one sharp ache.
离开家两周后，她在租来的双人床上醒来，身上一阵剧痛。
Suddenly she felt drowned in the incredible wrongness of the moment, that she should be here, so far away from them.
突然，她觉得自己身处错误的时间，这令她难以置信，她应该在这里，远离他们。
At last, caped in a blanket, she tiptoed to the telephone in the kitchen.
最后，她裹着毛毯，踮着脚走到厨房的电话机旁。
It was six forty-one in the morning, but it took only two rings.
现在是早上六点四十一分，电话却只响了两下。
“Hello?” James had said.
“喂?”詹姆斯说。
A long pause.
时间暂停了。
“Hello?” She said nothing, not daring to speak, just letting that voice soak into her heart.
“喂?”她什么也没说，不敢说话，只是让那个声音渗进心里。
He had sounded hoarse—just static, she told herself, though she did not truly believe this.
他听起来声音嘶哑，尽管她并不真正相信这一点。
At last, she pressed the hook down with one finger and held it there, a long time, before replacing the receiver again.
最后，她用一根手指把听筒按下去，拿了好长时间才放回原处。
All day she listened to that voice in her head, like a familiar and loved lullaby.
她整天都在听她脑子里的那个声音，就像一首熟悉而又可爱的摇篮曲。
