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Tipping her head back, she could not see the houses or the lake or the lamps on the street.
她仰起头，看不见房子，看不见湖，也看不见街上的路灯。
All she could see was the sky, so huge and dark it could crush her. It was like being on another planet. No—like floating in space, alone.
能看到的只有又大又黑的天空，足以把她压垮。就像在另一个星球上一样。不像在太空中独自漂浮。
She searched for the constellations she had seen on Nath's posters: Orion, Cassiopeia, the Big Dipper.
她寻找她在纳的海报上看到的星座：猎户星座、仙后座、北斗七星。
The diagrams seemed childish now, with their straight lines and primary colors and stick-figure shapes. Here the stars dazzled her eyes like sequins.
这些画现在看起来很幼稚，有直线、原色和简笔画的形状。上面的星星像亮片一样炫目。
This is what infinity looks like, she thought. Their clarity overwhelmed her, like pinpricks at her heart. "Isn't that amazing?" Nath's voice said softly, out of the darkness.
这就是无限的样子，她想。他们的清晰使她不知所措，就像她心上的小刺。“那不是很神奇吗？”黑暗中传来纳的声音。
Already he sounded light-years away. "Yeah," Lydia heard her own voice say, barely a whisper. "Amazing."
他听起来已经有好几光年远了。“是的，”莉迪亚听到自己的声音说，几乎没有耳语。“很震撼。”
The next morning, as Nath tucked his toothbrush into its case, Lydia hovered in the doorway.
第二天早上，纳把牙刷塞进牙刷盒时，莉迪亚在门口徘徊。
In ten minutes, their father would drive him to the airport in Cleveland, where TWA would carry him to New York, then Boston. It was four thirty A.M.
十分钟后，父亲会开车送他去克利夫兰机场，TWA会接他去纽约，然后是波士顿。现在是凌晨4点半。
"Promise you'll call and tell me how things are going." "Sure," Nath said.
“答应我你会打电话告诉我事情的进展。”“当然，”纳说。
He stretched the elastic straps over his folded clothes in a neat X and clapped the suitcase shut.
他把松紧带整整齐齐地系在叠好的衣服上，啪地一声关上了手提箱。
"You promise?" "I promise." Nath shut the latches with one finger, then hoisted the suitcase by the handle. "Dad's waiting. I'll see you Monday." And just like that, he was gone.
“你保证？”“我保证。”纳用一根手指把门闩关上，然后提起箱子的提手。“爸爸在等。周一见。”就这样，他走了。
Much later, when Lydia came downstairs for breakfast, she could almost pretend that nothing had changed.
过了好久，莉迪亚下楼吃早饭时，她几乎可以装出什么都没变的样子。
Her homework lay beside her breakfast bowl with four little ticks in the margin; across the table, Hannah picked pebbles of cereal from her bowl.
她的家庭作业就放在她的早餐碗旁边，边上有四个小钩；隔着桌子，汉娜从碗里挑出几粒麦片。
Their mother sipped oolong and leafed through the newspaper. Only one thing was different: Nath's place was empty. As if he had never been there.
母亲啜饮着乌龙茶，翻阅着报纸。只有一件事是不同的：纳的位置是空的。好像他从来没有去过那里似的。
"There you are," Marilyn said. "Better hurry and fix this, sweetheart, or you won't have time to eat before the bus." Lydia, who felt as if she were floating, made her way to the table.
“你在这儿，”玛丽琳说。“最好快点把这个改好，亲爱的，否则你在公车前就没时间吃东西了。”莉迪亚觉得自己飘飘然，便朝餐桌走去。
Marilyn, meanwhile, skimmed the paper—Carter's approval rating 65 percent, Mondale settling into role of "Senior Adviser", asbestos banned, another shooting in New York—before her eyes came to rest on a small human-interest story in the corner of the page.
与此同时，玛丽琳略读了这份文件，卡特的支持率为65%，蒙代尔开始扮演“高级顾问”的角色，另一起发生在纽约的枪击事件中，石棉也被禁止使用，直到她的目光落在了报纸一角的一个小故事上。
Los Angeles Doctor Revives Man in Coma for Six Years. Amazing, she thought.
洛杉矶医生使昏迷了六年的人苏醒过来。令人惊奇，她想。
She smiled up at her daughter, who stood clinging to the back of her chair as if, without it, she might drift away.
她抬头对女儿笑了笑，她的女儿紧紧抓着椅背，好像没有椅背，她就会飘走似的。
Nath did not call that night, when Lydia shrank and shriveled beneath her parents' undeflected attention. I got a course catalog from the college—do you want to take statistics this summer?
那天晚上，玛丽琳在父母目不转睛的注视下退缩、干瘪的时候，纳没有给她打电话。我收到学校寄来的课程目录——今年夏天你想做统计吗？
Anyone ask you to prom yet? Well, I'm sure someone will soon. He did not call Saturday, when Lydia cried herself to sleep, or on Sunday, when she awoke with eyes still scalding.
有人邀请你去舞会了吗？我相信很快就会有人来的。星期六莉迪亚哭着睡着的时候，电话没有来；星期天醒来的时候，莉迪亚的眼睛还是像滚烫的开水一样，电话也没有来。
So this is what it will be like, she thought to herself. As if I never had a brother at all.
那么，事情就会是这样的，她心里想。好像我从来没有哥哥似的。
