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In April, home was the last place Nath wanted to be. All month—weeks before his visit to campus—he stacked books and clothes in a growing pile.
4月，家是纳最不想待的地方。整整一个月——在他去学校的前几周——他把书和衣服堆成一堆。
Every evening before bed, he slipped the letter from beneath his pillow and reread it, savoring the details:
每天晚上睡觉前，他都会把信从枕头底下抽出来，重读一遍，细细品味其中的细节:
a junior from Albany, Andrew Bynner, an astrophysics major, would escort him around campus, engage him in intellectual and practical discussions over meals in the dining hall, and host him for the long weekend.
来自奥尔巴尼的天体物理学专业三年级学生安德鲁·伯纳会在校园里护送他，让他在餐厅用餐时进行智力和实践方面的讨论，并招待他度过漫长的周末。
Friday to Monday, he thought, looking at his plane tickets; ninety-six hours.
星期五到星期一，他一边看飞机票，一边想；九十六小时。
By the time he took his suitcase down, after Lydia's birthday dinner, he had already sorted the things he'd take with him from those he'd leave behind.
在莉迪亚的生日晚餐后，他把手提箱拿下来的时候，他已经把要带走的东西和要留下的东西分门别类了。
Even with her door closed, Lydia could hear it: the click-click of the suitcase latches opening, then a thud as the lid hit the floor. Their family never traveled.
即使门关着，莉迪亚也能听到：行李箱门闩咔哒一声打开，然后盖子砰的一声掉在地板上。他们家从不旅行。
Once, when Hannah was still a baby, they'd visited Gettysburg and Philadelphia.
有一次，汉娜还是个婴儿的时候，他们去了葛底斯堡和费城。
Their father had plotted out the whole trip in the road atlas, a chain of places so steeped in Americana that it oozed out everywhere:
他们的父亲在公路地图册上标出了整个旅程，地图册上是一系列浸透了美国风情的地方，到处都是：
in the names of the gas stations—Valley Forge Diesel—and in the diner specials when they stopped for lunch—Gettystown Shrimp, William Penn's Pork Tenderloin.
在加油站的名字里——福吉谷柴油——和他们停下来吃午饭的餐馆特色菜里——盖蒂斯敦虾仁，威廉·佩恩的猪里脊肉。
Then, at every restaurant, the waitresses had stared at her father, then at her mother, then at her and Nath and Hannah, and she knew, even as a child, that they'd never come back.
然后，每一家餐馆的女服务员都盯着她的父亲，又盯着她的母亲，然后看着她、纳和汉娜，她从小就知道，他们永远不会再回来了。
Since then, their father had taught summer classes every year, as if—she rightly suspected—to avoid raising the question of family vacations.
从那以后，父亲每年都教暑期班，如果——她的怀疑是正确的——避免提出家庭度假的问题。
In Nath's room, a drawer shut with a bang. Lydia leaned back on her bed and propped her heels on the postcard of Einstein.
纳的房间里，抽屉砰的一声关上了。莉迪亚靠在床上，脚跟靠在爱因斯坦的明信片上。
In her mouth, the sick-sweet taste of frosting still lingered; in her stomach, the birthday cake roiled.
在她的嘴里，糖霜那令人作呕的甜味儿仍然挥之不去；生日蛋糕在她肚子里翻滚。
At the end of summer, she thought, Nath would pack not just the one suitcase but a trunk and a stack of boxes, all his books and all his clothes, everything he owned.
夏末的时候，她想，纳会打包的不只是一个箱子，而是一个大箱子和一堆箱子，他所有的书，所有的衣服，他拥有的一切。
The telescope would disappear from the corner; the stacks of aeronautics magazines would vanish from the closet.
望远镜会从角落里消失；一堆堆航空杂志将从壁橱里消失。
A band of dust would border the bare shelves, clean wood at the back where the books had once stood.
光秃秃的书架后面，曾经放着书的地方，现在已经是干净的木头了。
Every drawer, when she opened it, would be empty. Even the sheets on his bed would be gone.
每一个抽屉，当她打开的时候，都会是空的。甚至他床上的床单也会消失。
Nath pushed the door open. "Which one's better?" He held up two shirts, a hanger in each hand, so they flanked his face like curtains.
纳推开门。“哪一个更好？”他举起两件衬衫，每只手里都拿着一个衣架，所以衬衫像窗帘一样挂在他的两侧。
On his left, a plain blue, his best dress shirt, the one he had worn to his junior award ceremony last spring.
在他的左边，是一件素色的蓝色衬衫，是他最好的礼服衬衫，就是他去年春天参加青年颁奖典礼时穿的那件。
On the right, a paisley she'd never seen before, a price tag still dangling from the cuff. "Where'd you get that?" "Bought it," Nath said with a grin.
右边是她从未见过的佩斯利，袖口上还挂着一张价签。“你从哪儿弄来的？”“买的，”纳笑着说。
All his life, whenever he needed new clothes, their mother dragged him to Decker's Department Store, and he agreed to anything she picked out in order to go home faster.
在他的一生中，每当他需要新衣服时，他们的母亲就把他拉到德克百货公司，为了更快回家，他同意了她挑的任何东西。
Last week, counting over his ninety-six hours, he had driven himself to the mall for the first time and bought this shirt, plucking the bright pattern from the rack.
上周，他花了九十六个小时，第一次开车去购物中心买了这件衬衫，从架子上取下明亮的图案。
It had felt like buying a new skin, and now his sister sensed this, too.
这感觉就像买了一张新皮肤，现在他的妹妹也感觉到了。
