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She stood on the step stool over the sink, aproned from neck to ankle, and pinched baking soda into a jar of vinegar.
她站在水池边的踏脚凳上，围裙从脖子到脚踝，把小苏打捏进一罐醋里。
"That's a chemical reaction," her mother said, and Lydia nodded as the foam gurgled down the drain.
母亲说：“那是化学反应。”泡沫汩汩地流进下水道时，莉迪亚点了点头。
She played store with her mother, making change with pennies and nickels: two cents for a hug, four cents for a kiss.
她和妈妈一起玩商店游戏，用硬币和五分镍币找零：拥抱2美分，亲吻4美分。
When Nath plunked down a quarter and said, "Bet you can't do that one," their mother shooed him away.
纳投下一枚25美分的硬币说：“我打赌你做不到。”母亲把他赶走了。
Inside Lydia could feel it: everything that was to come.
莉迪亚心里感到：一切都将来临。
One day the books would have no pictures. The problems would grow longer and harder. There would be fractions, decimals, exponents. The games would get trickier.
有一天，这些书将不再有图画。问题会变得更长、更棘手。会有分数、小数、指数。游戏将变得更加棘手。
Over meat loaf her mother would say, "Lydia, I'm thinking of a number. If you multiply by two and add one, you get seven."
吃肉时妈妈会说：“莉迪亚，我在想一个数字。如果你把它乘以2再加1，会得到7。”
She would count her way back until she got the right answer, and her mother would smile and bring in the dessert.
她会一直数着，直到找到正确的答案，然后妈妈会笑着把甜点端进来。
One day her mother would give her a real stethoscope.
有一天，妈妈会给她一个真正的听诊器。
She would undo the top two buttons of her blouse and press the chestpiece to her skin and Lydia would hear her mother’s heart directly. "Doctors use these," her mother would say.
她会解开上衣最上面两个扣子，把听诊头贴在皮肤上，这样莉迪亚就能直接听到母亲的心跳声。母亲会说：“医生会用这些。”
It was far away then, tiny in the distance, but Lydia already knew it would happen.
那时候它离我们很远，很小，但莉迪亚已经知道会发生这种事。
The knowledge hovered all around her, clinging to her, every day getting thicker. Everywhere she went, it was there.
她遨游在知识的海洋中，每天汲取越来越多。她走到哪里，知识就在哪里。
But every time her mother asked, she said yes, yes, yes.
但每次妈妈问她，她都会回答是。
Two weeks later, Marilyn and James drove to Toledo to retrieve her clothes and books."I can go alone," Marilyn insisted.
两周后，玛丽琳和詹姆斯开车去托莱多取回她的衣服和书籍。玛丽琳坚持说：“我可以一个人去。”
By then the marble and the barrette and the button nestled quietly, forgotten, in the pocket of her dress in the closet.
这时，大理石、发夹和纽扣都静静地放在壁橱中的衣服口袋里，被人遗忘了。
Already the dress was growing tight and soon Marilyn would give it away to Goodwill, with her tiny, forgotten talismans still tucked inside.
裙子已经很紧了，很快玛丽琳就会送给慈善机构，而她那被遗忘的小护身符还藏在里面。
Still, her eyes stung at the thought of emptying that apartment, sealing her books back into cartons, tossing her half-filled notebooks into the rubbish.
然而，一想到要清空公寓，把书塞回纸盒，把半满的笔记本扔进垃圾箱，眼睛就感到刺痛。
She wanted privacy for this little funeral. "Really," she said. "You don't have to come."
她想在这个小小的葬礼上有自己的隐私。她说：“真的，你不必来。”
James, however, insisted. "I don't want you lifting anything heavy in your condition," he said. "I'll ask Vivian Allen to stop by and watch the kids for the afternoon."
然而，詹姆斯坚持说：“我不希望你在这种情况下搬任何重东西，我让薇薇安·艾伦下午过来照看孩子们。”
As soon as James and Marilyn had gone, Mrs. Allen turned the TV to a soap opera and sat down on the couch.
詹姆斯和玛丽琳一走，艾伦太太就把电视调成肥皂剧，坐在沙发上。
Lydia hugged her knees under the dining table, cookbookless; Nath picked lint from the carpet and glowered.
莉迪亚在餐桌下抱膝，没看食谱；纳从地毯上捡起绒布，怒目而视。
His mother woke him up and tucked him in, but Lydia filled up all the spaces in between.
母亲把他叫醒，给他盖好被子，可是莉迪亚把中间的空隙都占满了。
He knew the answer to every question their mother asked, but whenever he tried to jump in, she shushed him while Lydia counted on her fingers.
他知道妈妈问的每一个问题的答案，可是，每当他要参与时，母亲就让他离开。
At the museum, he wanted to watch the star show in the planetarium, but they spent the whole day looking at the skeletons, the model of the digestive system, whatever Lydia wanted.
在博物馆里，他想去天文馆看星展，但她们一整天都在看骨架，看消化系统的模型，莉迪亚想要什么就有什么。
That very morning, he had come down to the kitchen early, clutching his folder of news clippings, and his mother, still in her bathrobe, gave him a sleepy smile over the rim of her teacup.
就在那天早上，他很早就来到厨房，手里攥着一叠新闻剪报，母亲仍然穿着浴袍，在她的茶杯边缘露出睡意朦胧的微笑。
It was the first time she had really looked?at him since she came home, and something fluttered in his throat like a little bird.
自从她回家以来第一次正视他，有什么东西像小鸟一样在他的喉咙里扑腾。
"Can I have a hard-boiled egg?" he asked, and, like a miracle, she said, "All right."
“能给我一个煮熟的鸡蛋吗?”他问，然后，令人吃惊的是，她说：“好吧。”
For a moment he forgave her everything. He decided he would show her the pictures of the astronauts' he’d been collecting, his lists of launches, everything.
在那一刻，他原谅了她的一切。他决定给她看他收集的宇航员的照片，他的发射清单，诸如此类的所有东西。
She would understand them. She would be impressed.
她会理解的。她会很惊讶的。
Then, before he could say a word, Lydia padded down the steps, and his mother's attention flitted away and alighted on Lydia's shoulders.
接着，他还没来得及说一句话，莉迪亚就慢吞吞地走下台阶，母亲的注意力转而落在莉迪亚的肩上。
Nath pouted in the corner, flicking the edges of his folder, but no one paid any attention to him until his father came into the kitchen.
纳在角落里撅着嘴，摩挲着文件夹的边缘，但没有人注意他，直到父亲走进厨房。
"Still mooning over those astronauts?" he said, plucking an apple from the fruit bowl on the counter.
“还在想着那些宇航员吗?”父亲一面说着，一面从柜台上的水果盘里拿出一个苹果。
He laughed at his own joke and bit into the apple, and even across the kitchen Nath had heard the hard crunch of teeth piercing skin.
他因为自己的话笑了起来，咬了一口苹果，在厨房的另一头，纳甚至也听到了牙齿刺穿皮肤的嘎吱声。
His mother, listening to Lydia recount last night's dream, had not. She had forgotten all about his egg.
母亲听着莉迪亚叙述昨晚的梦，把他的鸡蛋忘得一干二净了。
The little bird in his throat had died and swelled so that he could hardly breathe.
他喉咙里的小鸟死了，肿胀得几乎不能呼吸。
