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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.
他终于把他最不敢说、她最渴望听到的话说了出来：假装你从未见过我。一切都没发生过。
He has undone the great mistake of her life. 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.
他消除了她一生中最大的错误。但是他不能否认的是，不管他怎么努力，玛丽琳似乎并不领情。她退缩了，好像他往她脸上啐了一口唾沫。
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.
她咬了她的嘴唇一次，两次，就像吞下一颗坚硬而痛苦的种子。汽车转向了路肩，车轮下的碎石在颤动。
She left first, James reminds himself, nudging the car to the center of the road again.
她先离开了，詹姆斯提醒自己，又把车推到路中央。
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.
这是她一直想要的。然而，即使他这么想，他也知道这不是真的。这条黄线摇摆不定。
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.
对詹姆斯来说，多年来不加掩饰的凝视刺痛了他的脊椎，仿佛他是动物园里的动物一样，多年来街上的嘀咕声——中国佬，滚回家吧——刺痛了他的耳朵，他的额头上总是有一个与众不同的烙印，在两眼之间闪耀着。
It has tinted his entire life, this word; it has left its smudgy fingerprints on everything. But different had been different for Marilyn.
与众不同这个词已经影响了他的整个生活；它在所有东西上都留下了污点。但对玛丽琳来说，不同就是不同。
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.
玛丽琳在一群男人的教室里年轻而无畏。把尿从她的烧瓶里倒出来，用梦想填满脑袋，堵住耳朵。在穿着海军蓝的运动夹克的人群中穿着一件白色衬衫。
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.
她多么渴望与众不同：在她的生活中，在她自己身上。这就好像有人举起了他的整个世界，把它转到一边，又把它放下来。
Marilyn, packing those dreams away in lavender for their daughter, disappointment layered beneath her smile.
玛丽琳将这些梦想包装在薰衣草中，送给女儿，她的微笑下夹杂着失望。
Triply sequestered by house and dead-end street and tiny college town, her hands soft and uncalloused but idle.
房子、死胡同和小小的大学城把她与外界隔绝了三倍，她的双手柔软，没有老茧，但却闲着。
The intricate gears of her mind ticking silently at no one, thoughts pinging the closed windows like a trapped bee.
她那错综复杂的思绪像一只被困住的蜜蜂，在紧闭的窗户上叮叮作响，对着谁也不吭声。
And now, alone in their daughter's room, surrounded by the relics of their daughter's life, no lavender, only dust, in the air.
现在，她独自待在女儿房间里，四周都是女儿的遗物，没有薰衣草，只有空气中的灰尘。
It has been so long since he thought of his wife as a creature of want.
他很久没有把他的妻子看作是穷困潦倒的人了。
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.
后来——在他的余生中——詹姆斯将努力用语言来表达这种感觉，他永远无法完全说出他真正的意思，即使只是对自己说。
At this moment he can think only one thing: how was it possible, he wonders, to have been so wrong.
此刻，他只能想一件事：他想知道，怎么可能错得这么离谱。
Back in Middlewood, Nath does not know how long he lies there, sprawled across the front seat.
回到米德尔伍德，纳不知道自己在前座上躺了多久。
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.
他只知道：有人打开了车门。有人叫他的名字。然后一只手抓住了他的肩膀，温暖、温柔、有力，没有松手。
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.
纳挣扎着从昏昏沉沉的昏迷中醒来，那声音听起来像他父亲的声音，虽然他的父亲从来没有这样温柔地叫过他的名字，也从来没有这样温柔地抚摸过他。
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.
在他睁开眼睛之前，那是他的父亲，即使当世界聚焦在朦胧的阳光下，一辆巡警巡逻车，菲斯克警官蹲在他旁边打开车门，这仍然是真实的。
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."
菲斯克警官从他的手指上剥下空酒瓶，帮他抬起头，但在他心里，是他的父亲在说：“孩子，该回家了。”他的善意让纳开始哭泣。
