我嫁給了一個愛媽媽的好男人

WHEN Miles and I decided to live together, I asked him if his mother, Terry, would be upset. We sat at the kitchen table in his apartment near Fort Rucker, Ala., while the warm fall evening pressed against the sliding glass doors. Miles would graduate from flight school in a few months, and the Army would be sending him to Fort Bragg, N.C. My job in Tallahassee would be ending at the same time, and the move felt right to both of us.

當邁爾斯(Miles)和我決定同居時，我問他，他的母親特麗(Terry)會不會難過。在阿拉巴馬州拉克堡，我們坐在他的公寓廚房桌子邊，玻璃推拉門外是秋日傍晚的溫暖夜色。幾個月后，邁爾斯便將從飛行學(xué)校畢業(yè)，陸軍將派他去北卡羅來納州的布拉格堡。屆時我在塔拉哈西的工作也將結(jié)束。我們倆都覺得應(yīng)該生活在一起。

“Don’t worry about it,” he said. He leaned back in his wooden chair and propped a foot against the leg of the table. “She’ll probably want to send us a housewarming gift. Go ahead and think of something.”

“別擔心，”他說。他斜靠在椅子上，一只腳頂著桌腿。“她興許想送我們一件喬遷禮物呢。想想要什么吧。”

I thought place mats would be nice.

我覺得餐墊就挺好的。

Terry came for a visit three weeks after we moved into our tiny rented house on the outskirts of Fort Bragg. She did not bring place mats. She was tense and unsettled, the way I remembered her, and she refused to stay in our guest bedroom. She stayed in a hotel across town instead.

在我們搬進布拉格堡郊區(qū)租來的小房子三周后，特麗來看望我們。她沒有帶餐墊，并且緊張不安，就像我記憶中的那樣。她不肯住家里的客房，而是住進了小鎮(zhèn)另一頭的一家賓館。

In our home, Terry was cordial. She cooked dinner, churning out Miles’s favorites, like “burnt steak stew,” meals with a history that reached back to their hometown in Texas. She made the sugar cookies Miles liked, the kind I could never get right, and she talked about home and church and family.

在我們家里，特麗很熱情。她做晚飯時弄了一大堆邁爾斯愛吃的東西，比方說“焦燉牛排”之類，淵源都可以追溯到他們在德克薩斯州的家鄉(xiāng)。她做了邁爾斯喜歡的糖餅干，那玩意兒我永遠做不好，她還聊起家鄉(xiāng)、教堂和家庭之類的事。

On the second day, after Miles had put on his uniform and left for the base, Terry suggested we drive to the mall in Raleigh. Spring unfolds slowly in North Carolina, and the air was cool and damp even as the first daffodils pushed through the wet earth. We climbed into her rental car and drove through Fayetteville, where rhododendrons bloomed pink against the gray morning.

第二天，邁爾斯穿上制服去了基地。特麗提議我們開車到羅利去逛商場。北卡羅萊納的春天來得格外遲緩，雖然泥地上早生的黃水仙已經(jīng)破土而出，但空氣還是那么潮濕料峭。我們鉆進她租來的車子，開過費耶特維爾，沿途粉紅色的杜鵑花在灰蒙蒙的早晨顯得格外鮮艷。

The rain started when we reached the Interstate, and Terry launched into the reason for her visit.

到達州際公路時開始下雨，特麗聊起她來拜訪的理由。

“You know Brad and I don’t approve of you living together,” she said, referring to Miles’s father. She called it “living in sin.” Her hands gripped the steering wheel and outside it poured and poured. “When he has sex with you, he’s disrespecting you.” I thought about telling her that he sometimes disrespected me on the couch. Once in the kitchen.

“你知道我和布拉德(Brad)不同意你們同居，”她說，布拉德是邁爾斯的爸爸。她把我們同居稱為“生活在罪惡之中。”她雙手緊握方向盤，窗外大雨傾盆。“他與你性交是對你的不尊重。”我真想告訴她，邁爾斯有時候也在沙發(fā)上不尊重我，還有一次在廚房里不尊重我。

She talked for an hour and a half, without pause, without my input. But when we reached the shopping center, the space between us seemed somehow easier. We spent the afternoon shopping, as good friends often will, inspecting sales racks and eating Chinese in the food court.

她不停地說了一個半小時，我都沒插上嘴。不過到購物中心時，我們之間的氣氛不知什么好像變輕松了。那天下午，我們一起逛街，就像好朋友經(jīng)常做的那樣，瀏覽貨架，在餐飲區(qū)吃中餐。

At the makeup counter at Macy’s, Terry tried on lavender eye shadow.

在梅西百貨(Macy’s)的化妝品柜臺，特麗試了一款淡紫色眼影。

“That looks nice on you,” I said.

“你畫這個挺好看的，”我說。

She smiled shyly into the hand mirror. When the saleswoman asked if she’d like her to wrap it up, Terry nodded. She was strangely tentative about the exchange, as if she weren’t used to buying nice things for herself.

她對著手里的小鏡子不好意思地笑了一下。售貨員問她要不要包起來，她點了點頭。她對這次交易有種奇怪的猶豫，好像不太習慣給自己買好東西。

Later, after the visit, I asked if Brad had liked the new eye shadow.

后來在她家里，我問她布拉德喜不喜歡那款新眼影。

“He didn’t notice,” she said coolly. The distance had returned.

“他都沒注意到，”她冷淡地說。我們又恢復(fù)了之前的距離感。

In the summer, we stopped at Miles’s home in the Texas panhandle on our way to Fort Hood in the central part of the state. His unit would spend nine months training there before heading to Iraq. As we turned off the highway onto their gravel road, a steady wind blew. It stirred the dry grass and ruffled the cows in the pasture.

那年夏天，我們在去德克薩斯州中部胡德堡的路上，順道去了一趟邁爾斯位于德克薩斯鍋柄地帶(panhandle，指德克薩斯州最北部與新墨西哥州和俄克拉荷馬州接壤的一小塊地區(qū)——譯注)的家。他的分隊要在胡德堡訓(xùn)練9個月，然后開往伊拉克。我們離開高速公路，駛上他們家的石子路，風一直在刮，吹亂了干草，惹得牧場里的奶牛煩躁不已。

Miles spent his days outside, under the big Texas sky. He rode horses and worked the ranch with Brad, while I stayed inside with Terry. She showed me how to make her meatloaf and wrote the recipe for her sugar cookies on an index card for me to take to Fort Hood. She talked endlessly, hardly pausing for breath. It was as if she weren’t used to having an audience and needed to unload the things she carried in her heart.

白天，邁爾斯在遼闊的德克薩斯天空下騎馬，和布拉德在牧場里干活，我和特麗呆在屋里。她教我做她的私房肉糕，在索引卡上寫下糖餅干的食譜，讓我?guī)ズ卤?。她不停地說話，幾乎不停下來喘口氣。她好像難得有聽眾，現(xiàn)在她需要把心里的話都說出來。

Mostly she talked about Miles. About how long it took to conceive him, about the miscarriages that came after. She numbered her lost babies among her children. She talked about breast-feeding, sleepless nights and Miles’s sweet baby smile.

她大部分時間是在說邁爾斯。說她等了多長時間才懷上他，還有后來的流產(chǎn)。她把失去的嬰兒也算作自己的孩子。她說起母乳喂養(yǎng)，不眠不休的夜晚以及邁爾斯甜美的嬰兒微笑。

She cornered me once about the move to Texas, but before she could get into the sinful parts, someone interrupted the conversation. Anyway, Miles and I were married in less than a year, and by then the point was moot.

有一次，她又質(zhì)問我搬去德克薩斯的事，但她還沒說到罪惡的部分，就有人打斷了我們的談話。反正，不到一年，我和邁爾斯就結(jié)婚了，這個問題也失去了意義。

At Christmas, we were back in the panhandle. The Henderson clan had assembled for the holidays, and they were a hard-drinking, hard-partying lot. They gathered at Uncle Rick’s canyon house, where the cousins played cards and drank Coors Light while Aunt Minnie chain-smoked on the back porch. Terry greeted them each with a stiff hug.

那年圣誕節(jié)，我們回到德克薩斯鍋柄地帶。亨德森一家(Henderson)為節(jié)日團聚，他們是那種喜歡豪飲和聚會的人。他們聚集在里克叔叔(Rick)峽谷的房子里，堂兄弟姐妹們打牌，喝康勝銀子彈淡啤(Coors Light)，明妮嬸嬸(Minnie)在后廊上不停地抽煙。特麗跟他們每個人見面打招呼時，擁抱得很不自然。

She fit oddly into this mix. She was raised a Catholic, and her mother still went to Mass every Sunday. But when she married Brad, a conservative Protestant, she set aside her faith and adopted his. While Brad’s family were churchgoing folk, none of them approached religion with his hard-line zeal. So while the drinking and cussing and sinning carried on around her, Terry kept herself apart.

她不太能融入這個群體。她從小在天主教家庭長大，她媽媽依然每個禮拜日去參加彌撒。布拉德是一名保守派新教徒，特麗嫁給他后，放棄自己的信仰，皈依了丈夫的教派。雖然布拉德的家人也去教堂，但他們對宗教缺乏他那種堅定的熱情。所以，盡管周圍的人在喝酒、咒罵、作惡，特麗卻總是和這一切保持著距離。

At one point in the card game, someone asked Miles where his mother had gone. He hooked a thumb over his shoulder, toward the back room where the kids watched cartoons. The cousins rolled their eyes and snickered. Miles was the only one not to laugh.

打牌時，突然有人問邁爾斯他媽媽去哪兒了。他把大拇指舉過肩膀，指向孩子們看動畫片的后屋。堂兄弟姐妹們翻著白眼竊笑。只有邁爾斯沒笑。

On the day Miles was deployed, after we left him at the hangar on base, Terry came back to our apartment. She helped me pack up our life so I could go home to my family in Florida. Together, we boxed the towels and the bed linens, the Crock-Pot and the TV. We loaded them into Miles’s pickup and Terry drove the truck back to Texas, where it would wait for him to come home.

邁爾斯上前線那天，我們把他送到基地的飛機庫。然后，特麗回到我們的公寓，幫我把家里的東西打包起來，好讓我能回佛羅里達州自己家里住。我們一起把毛巾、床單被罩、Crock-Pot慢燉鍋和電視放進箱子，裝到邁爾斯的皮卡車上。最后特麗把車開回德克薩斯州，讓車在那兒等他回家。

When he did come home, it was not the way we expected, but with an escort and an honor guard and casualty assistance officers. Terry told me that when the notifying soldier came to her door, she wouldn’t let him speak.

不過他并不是以我們所期待的方式回到家中，而是在一支護衛(wèi)隊、一支儀仗隊，以及傷亡援助軍官陪同下回來的。特麗告訴我，通知消息的士兵來到她家門前時，她不讓他說話。

“Stop,” she said and held up a hand. “Just tell me if my son is alive.”

“別說了，”她舉起一只手說，“你就說我兒子是不是還活著。”

“No, ma’am,” the soldier said. “He’s not.”

“不，夫人，”士兵說，“他去世了。”

I couldn’t imagine that kind of backbone; I had listened silently through my own notification, then thanked the soldiers as they left. But later, when it had all sunk in? this new reality and the things we do when we lose someone we love ?her reaction felt right. Miles was the best of her. He had her face, her build, her Texas twang. As much as he was to me, he was more to her, more viscerally hers. They shared DNA, for God’s sake.

我無法想像那種堅強。士兵們來通知我時，我安靜地從頭聽到尾，他們離開時，我對他們表示感謝。但是后來，當我沉浸到新的現(xiàn)實中，做我們在失去所愛之人時做的事情時，才感覺到她的反應(yīng)是很自然的。邁爾斯是她生命中最美的部分。他有與她相似的臉龐、體形和德克薩斯人特有的鼻音。他是我的，更是她的，從本質(zhì)上更多地屬于她。要知道，他身上有著她的基因。

After the first few months, after the unspeakable sadness of the funeral and learning the horrible details of Miles’s death, Terry came to Florida to help me sort through the things sent back from Iraq. There were two black plastic bins filled with Miles’s possessions, carefully labeled and organized, still covered with a fine dusting of Iraqi sand. Although they were legally mine I was next of kin, after all it didn’t feel right that I should have sole access to them.

前幾個月過去了，經(jīng)歷了葬禮上無法言喻的悲傷，知曉了邁爾斯犧牲的可怕細節(jié)后，特麗來到佛羅里達州，幫我整理從伊拉克送回的遺物。兩個黑色的塑料箱里裝滿了邁爾斯的東西，經(jīng)過了仔細的分類整理，依然蒙著伊拉克沙漠的微塵。雖然從法律上講，它們屬于我，因為我是他最近的親屬，但由我獨享這些遺物終究感覺不對勁。

We sat in my garage with the doors open while heavy sheets of rain poured down outside, and sifted through Miles’s life in the desert. We sorted through his notebooks and office supplies, his rolled socks and Army fatigues. We flipped through his CD collection and paged through his books.

我們坐在車庫里，門開著，外面下著瓢潑大雨。我們仔細查看邁爾斯在沙漠里的生活。我們分類整理他的筆記本和辦公用品、他卷好的襪子和軍裝。我們翻看他收藏的CD唱片，一頁一頁翻看他的書。

WHEN it was all too much too much to remember, too much life packed into those plastic containers ? Terry stopped and pulled a T-shirt from the pile. She raised it to her face and breathed deeply, searching for some trace of Miles. She did not know what I knew, for I had already done the same: The Army had laundered his clothes before sending them home, and this, too, was lost.

兩個塑料箱里裝了太多太多回憶，太多他的生活，特麗停下來，從遺物堆里拿起一件T恤。她把它捧到臉上，深深地吸了一口氣，尋找邁爾斯的氣息。她還不知道，但我已經(jīng)知道了，因為我曾經(jīng)做過同一個動作――軍隊把他的衣服送回家之前，已經(jīng)洗過了，所以他的氣息也被洗掉了。

What remained was the space created by Miles’s absence, thick and palpable with our grief. Losing a spouse is in no way like losing a child, but all loss is in some way like losing ourselves. In the months after Miles’s death Terry and I struggled to reorient our own lives, and in that search we found each other. We began to bridge the distance that had been between us, bringing our shared love for Miles into the unknowable middle ground.

剩下的只有邁爾斯離去后留下的空白，因為我們的悲傷而顯得格外清晰厚重。失去配偶沒法跟失去孩子相比，但所有的失去在某種程度上都像是失去我們自己。邁爾斯去世幾個月后，我和特麗努力重新開始自己的生活，在這個過程中，我們找到了彼此。我們開始拉近我們之間原本的距離，帶著我們對邁爾斯共同的愛走入未知的中間地帶。

At the military briefing following his death, we saw photos of the citrus orchard where his helicopter crashed, and we read the final seconds of audio from the in-flight voice recorder. “Pull up,” Miles had said at the very end. Terry stood behind me during the hardest parts, pressing her small hands into my shoulders.

在邁爾斯犧牲后的軍隊簡報會上，我們看到了他的直升機墜毀的那個柑橘園的照片，我們也聽了飛行聲音記錄儀上最后幾秒的音頻。“拉起來，”這就是邁爾斯的最后一句話。播放最難過的片段時，特麗站在我身后，小小的手緊緊按著我的肩膀。

I have heard people say that you should never marry a man who does not love his mother. I was lucky: Miles loved his mother fiercely. He loved me, too. In losing him, Terry and I have not divvied up this love, as we have with his other things. We have discovered that there is more than enough to share.

我聽人說，絕不要嫁給一個不愛自己母親的人。我很幸運：邁爾斯深愛著他的母親。他也愛我。失去他以后，我和特麗分掉了他的遺物，但是這份愛是無法分割的，我們發(fā)現(xiàn)，我們可以分享的東西還有很多。