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She would never know. She would say no to birthday parties, to roller-skating, to swimming at the rec center, to everything.
她永远也不会知道。她拒绝生日派对，拒绝轮滑，拒绝在学校健身中心游泳，拒绝一切。
Each afternoon she rushed home, desperate to see her mother's face, to make her mother smile. By the second grade, the other girls stopped asking.
每天下午，她都急匆匆地赶回家，迫不及待地想看看妈妈的脸，好让妈妈开心。到了二年级，其他女孩不再问她了。
She told herself she didn't care: her mother was still there. That was all that mattered.
她告诉自己：她不在乎，她妈妈还在。这才是最重要的。
In the years to come, Lydia would watch Stacey Sherwin—her golden hair braided, then ironed flat, then feathered — waving to her friends, pulling them toward her, the way a rhinestone caught and held the light.
在接下来的几年里，莉迪亚看着史黛丝·舍尔文金色的头发先编成辫子，然后熨平，最后插上羽毛，史黛丝向朋友们挥手，把她们拉向她，就像一块莱茵石抓住了灯光一样。
She would see Jenn Pittman slip a note to Pam Saunders and see Pam Saunders unfold it beneath her desk and snicker;
她看到珍妮·皮特曼把一张纸条塞给帕姆·桑德斯，帕姆·桑德斯把纸条在她的桌子底下展开，然后窃笑。
she would watch Shelley Brierley share out a pack of Doublemint and breathe in the sugar-spearmint scent as the foil-wrapped sticks passed her by.
她看着谢莉·布里耶利分享一包薄荷糖，锡箔纸包裹的薄荷糖经过她身边时，她闻到了薄荷糖的香味。
Only Nath had made it bearable all that time.
在这段时间里，只有纳让这一切变得可以忍受。
Every day, since kindergarten, he saved her a seat—in the cafeteria, a chair across the table from him; on the bus, his books placed beside him on the green vinyl seat.
从幼儿园开始，他每天都给她留一个座位：在自助餐厅，在他对面的桌子上；在公共汽车上，他把书放在旁边的绿色乙烯基座位上。
If she arrived first, she saved a seat for him.
如果她先到，她就给他留了个座位。
Because of Nath, she never had to ride home alone while everyone else chatted sociably in pairs; she never needed to gulp out, "Can I sit here?" and risk being turned away.
因为有纳，她再也不必一个人回家了，而其他所有人都成对地聊天。她再也不需要冒着被拒绝的风险大声说：“我可以坐在这里吗？”
They never discussed it, but both came to understand it as a promise: he would always make sure there was a place for her. She would always be able to say, someone is coming. I am not alone.
他们从未讨论过这个问题，但两人都把它理解为一种承诺：他总是确保她有位置。她总是能够说，有人会来，我并不孤单。
Now Nath was leaving. More letters were on their way. In a few days we will send a packet of information and forms should you choose to accept your place.
现在纳要走了。更多的信件还在路上。几天后，如果你接受，我们将发送一份信息和表格。
Still, for a moment, Lydia allowed herself to fantasize: slipping the next letter out of the mail pile, and the next, and the next, tucking them between mattress and box spring where Nath couldn't find them, so that he would have no choice but to stay.
可是，莉迪亚还是胡思乱想了一会儿，把一封封信从邮件堆里抽出来，藏在床垫和弹簧架之间，这样纳就找不到了，他别无选择，只能留下。
Downstairs, Nath riffled through the pile of mail: a grocery circular, an electric bill. No letter.
楼下，纳飞快地翻看着那堆邮件：一个杂货店的广告，一张电费账单。没有信。
That fall, when the guidance counselor had asked Nath about his career plans, he had whispered, as if telling her a dirty secret. "Space," he'd said. "Outer space."
那年秋天，当辅导员问起纳的职业规划时，他低声说了几句，仿佛在告诉她一个肮脏的秘密。“太空，外太空。”
Mrs. Hendrich had clicked her pen twice, in-out, and he thought she was going to laugh.
亨德里奇夫人按了两下笔，他以为她要笑了。
It had been nearly five years since the last trip to the moon, and the nation, having bested the Soviets, had turned its attention elsewhere.
距离上次登月已经过去了近5年，在战胜苏联之后，这个国家把注意力转向了别处。
Instead Mrs. Hendrich told him there were two routes: become a pilot or become a scientist.
相反，亨德里克太太告诉他有两条路可走：要么成为飞行员，要么成为科学家。
She flipped a folder open to his printed-out transcript. B-minus in phys ed; A-plus in trigonometry, calculus, biology, physics.
她打开一个文件夹，翻到他打印好的成绩单上。物理B-；三角学，微积分，生物学，物理学都是A+。
Though Nath dreamed of MIT, or Carnegie Mellon, or Caltech—he’d even written for pamphlets — he knew there was only one place his father would approve: Harvard.
尽管纳梦想着麻省理工学院、卡内基梅隆大学、加州理工学院，他甚至还为一些小册子写过文章，但他知道父亲只会认可哈佛。
To James, anything else was a failing. Once he got to college, Nath told himself, he would take advanced physics, material science, aerodynamics.
对詹姆斯来说，其他学校都是失败的。纳告诉自己，一旦上了大学，他就会选修高等物理、材料科学和空气动力学。
College would be a jumping-off point for a million places he had never been, a stop-off at the moon before shooting into space.
大学将是他从未去过的一百万个地方的起点，是登月之前的中转站。
He would leave everything and everyone behind—and though he wouldn't admit it to himself, everyone?meant Lydia, too.
他会抛下一切，抛下所有人，尽管他自己也不愿承认，但所有人指的就是莉迪亚。
