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.

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。

We sat at the kitchen table in his apartment near Fort Rucker, Ala., while the warm fall evening pressed against the sliding glass doors.

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。

Miles would graduate from flight school in a few months, and the Army would be sending him to Fort Bragg, N.C.

幾個月後，邁爾斯便將從飛行學校畢業，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束。

My job in Tallahassee would be ending at the same time, and the move felt right to both of us.

我們倆都覺得應該生活在一起。

Don’t worry about it, he said.

別擔心，他說。

He leaned back in his wooden chair and propped a foot against the leg of the table.

他斜靠在椅子上，一隻腳頂着桌腿。

She’ll probably want to send us a housewarming gift.

她興許想送我們一件喬遷禮物呢。

Go ahead and think of something.

想想要什麼吧。

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.

在我們搬進布拉格堡郊區租來的小房子三週後，特麗來看望我們。

She did not bring place mats.

她沒有帶餐墊，並且緊張不安，就像我記憶中的那樣。

She stayed in a hotel across town instead.

她不肯住家裏的客房，而是住進了小鎮另一頭的一家賓館。

In our home, Terry was cordial.

在我們家裏，特麗很熱情。

She cooked dinner, churning out Miles’s favorites, like burnt steak stew, meals with a history that reached back to their hometown in Texas.

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。

She made the sugar cookies Miles liked, the kind I could never get right, and she talked about home and church and family.

她做了邁爾斯喜歡的糖餅乾，那玩意兒我永遠做不好，她還聊起家鄉、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,

第二天，邁爾斯穿上制服去了基地。

Terry suggested we drive to the mall in Raleigh.

特麗提議我們開車到羅利去逛商場。

Spring unfolds slowly in North Carolina, and the air was cool and damp even as the first daffodils pushed through the wet earth.

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破土而出，但空氣還是那麼潮溼料峭。

We climbed into her rental car and drove through Fayetteville, where rhododendrons bloomed pink against the gray morning.

我們鑽進她租來的車子，開過費耶特維爾，沿途粉紅色的杜鵑花在灰濛濛的早晨顯得格外鮮豔。

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.

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。

She called it living in sin.

她把我們同居稱爲生活在罪惡之中。

Her hands gripped the steering wheel and outside it poured and poured.

她雙手緊握方向盤，窗外大雨傾盆。

When he has sex with you, he’s disrespecting you.

他與你性交是對你的不尊重。

I thought about telling her that he sometimes disrespected me on the couch.

我真想告訴她，邁爾斯有時候也在沙發上不尊重我，

Once in the kitchen.

還有一次在廚房裏不尊重我。

She talked for an hour and a half, without pause, without my input.

她不停地說了一個半小時，我都沒插上嘴。

But when we reached the shopping center, the space between us seemed somehow easier.

不過到購物中心時，我們之間的氣氛不知什麼好像變輕鬆了。

We spent the afternoon shopping, as good friends often will, inspecting sales racks and eating Chinese in the food court.

那天下午，我們一起逛街，就像好朋友經常做的那樣，瀏覽貨架，在餐飲區吃中餐。

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

在梅西百貨(Macy’s)的化妝品櫃檯，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.

她對着手裏的小鏡子不好意思地笑了一下。

When the saleswoman asked if she’d like her to wrap it up, Terry nodded.

售貨員問她要不要包起來，她點了點頭。

She was strangely tentative about the exchange, as if she weren’t used to buying nice things for herself.

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.

後來在她家裏，我問她布拉德喜不喜歡那款新眼影。

He didn’t notice, she said coolly.

他都沒注意到，她冷淡地說。

The distance had returned.

我們又恢復了之前的距離感。

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.

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於德克薩斯鍋柄地帶（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——譯註）的家。

His unit would spend nine months training there before heading to Iraq.

他的分隊要在胡德堡訓練9個月，然後開往伊拉克。

As we turned off the highway onto their gravel road, a steady wind blew.

我們離開高速公路，駛上他們家的石子路，風一直在刮，

It stirred the dry grass and ruffled the cows in the pasture.

吹亂了乾草，惹得牧場裏的奶牛煩躁不已。

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.

白天，邁爾斯在遼闊的德克薩斯天空下騎馬，和布拉德在牧場裏幹活，我和特麗呆在屋裏。

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.

她教我做她的私房肉糕，在索引卡上寫下糖餅乾的食譜，讓我帶去胡德堡。

She talked endlessly, hardly pausing for breath.

她不停地說話，幾乎不停下來喘口氣。

It was as if she weren’t used to having an audience and needed to unload the things she carried in her heart.

她好像難得有聽衆，現在她需要把心裏的話都說出來。

Mostly she talked about Miles.

她大部分時間是在說邁爾斯。

About how long it took to conceive him, about the miscarriages that came after.

說她等了多長時間才懷上他，還有後來的流產。

She numbered her lost babies among her children.

她把失去的嬰兒也算作自己的孩子。

She talked about breast-feeding, sleepless nights and Miles’s sweet baby smile.

她說起母乳餵養，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.

有一次，她又質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。

Anyway, Miles and I were married in less than a year, and by then the point was moot.

反正，不到一年，我和邁爾斯就結婚了，這個問題也失去了意義。

At Christmas, we were back in the panhandle.

那年聖誕節，我們回到德克薩斯鍋柄地帶。

The Henderson clan had assembled for the holidays, and they were a hard-drinking, hard-partying lot.

亨德森一家(Henderson)爲節日團聚，他們是那種喜歡豪飲和聚會的人。

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.

他們聚集在裏克叔叔(Rick)峽谷的房子裏，堂兄弟姐妹們打牌，喝康勝銀子彈淡啤(Coors Light)，明妮嬸嬸(Minnie)在後廊上不停地抽菸。

Terry greeted them each with a stiff hug.

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.

她不太能融入這個羣體。

She was raised a Catholic, and her mother still went to Mass every Sunday.

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。

But when she married Brad, a conservative Protestant, she set aside her faith and adopted his.

布拉德是一名保守派新教徒，特麗嫁給他後，放棄自己的信仰，皈依了丈夫的教派。

While Brad’s family were churchgoing folk, none of them approached religion with his hard-line zeal.

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。

So while the drinking and cussing and sinning carried on around her, Terry kept herself apart.

所以，儘管周圍的人在喝酒、咒罵、作惡，特麗卻總是和這一切保持着距離。

At one point in the card game, someone asked Miles where his mother had gone.

打牌時，突然有人問邁爾斯他媽媽去哪兒了。

He hooked a thumb over his shoulder, toward the back room where the kids watched cartoons.

他把大拇指舉過肩膀，指向孩子們看動畫片的後屋。

The cousins rolled their eyes and snickered.

堂兄弟姐妹們翻着白眼竊笑。

Miles was the only one not to laugh.

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.

邁爾斯上前線那天，我們把他送到基地的飛機庫。

She helped me pack up our life so I could go home to my family in Florida.

然後，特麗回到我們的公寓，幫我把家裏的東西打包起來，好讓我能回佛羅里達州自己家裏住。

Together, we boxed the towels and the bed linens, the Crock-Pot and the TV.

我們一起把毛巾、牀單被罩、Crock-Pot慢燉鍋和電視放進箱子，裝到邁爾斯的皮卡車上。

We loaded them into Miles’s pickup and Terry drove the truck back to Texas, where it would wait for him to come home.

最後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.

不過他並不是以我們所期待的方式回到家中，而是在一支護衛隊、一支儀仗隊，以及傷亡援助軍官陪同下回來的。

Terry told me that when the notifying soldier came to her door, she wouldn’t let him speak.

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.

別說了，她舉起一隻手說，

Just tell me if my son is alive.

你就說我兒子是不是還活着。

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;

我無法想像那種堅強。

I had listened silently through my own notification, then thanked the soldiers as they left.

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。

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.

但是後來，當我沉浸到新的現實中，做我們在失去所愛之人時做的事情時，才感覺到她的反應是很自然的。

Miles was the best of her.

邁爾斯是她生命中最美的部分。

He had her face, her build, her Texas twang.

他有與她相似的臉龐、體形和德克薩斯人特有的鼻音。

As much as he was to me, he was more to her, more viscerally hers.

他是我的，更是她的，從本質上更多地屬於她。

They shared DNA, for God’s sake.

要知道，他身上有着她的基因。

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.

前幾個月過去了，經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後，特麗來到佛羅里達州，幫我整理從伊拉克送回的遺物。

There were two black plastic bins filled with Miles’s possessions, carefully labeled and organized, still covered with a fine dusting of Iraqi sand.

兩個黑色的塑料箱裏裝滿了邁爾斯的東西，經過了仔細的分類整理，依然蒙着伊拉克沙漠的微塵。

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.

雖然從法律上講，它們屬於我，因爲我是他最近的親屬，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,

我們坐在車庫裏，門開着，外面下着瓢潑大雨。

and sifted through Miles’s life in the desert.

我們仔細查看邁爾斯在沙漠裏的生活。

We sorted through his notebooks and office supplies, his rolled socks and Army fatigues.

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。

We flipped through his CD collection and paged through his books.

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.

兩個塑料箱裏裝了太多太多回憶，太多他的生活，特麗停下來，從遺物堆裏拿起一件T恤。

She raised it to her face and breathed deeply, searching for some trace of Miles.

她把它捧到臉上，深深地吸了一口氣，尋找邁爾斯的氣息。

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.

她還不知道，但我已經知道了，因爲我曾經做過同一個動作――軍隊把他的衣服送回家之前，已經洗過了，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.

剩下的只有邁爾斯離去後留下的空白，因爲我們的悲傷而顯得格外清晰厚重。

Losing a spouse is in no way like losing a child, but all loss is in some way like losing ourselves.

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。

In the months after Miles’s death Terry and I struggled to reorient our own lives, and in that search we found each other.

邁爾斯去世幾個月後，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。

We began to bridge the distance that had been between us, bringing our shared love for Miles into the unknowable middle ground.

我們開始拉近我們之間原本的距離，帶着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.

在邁爾斯犧牲後的軍隊簡報會上，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後幾秒的音頻。

Pull up, Miles had said at the very end.

拉起來，這就是邁爾斯的最後一句話。

Terry stood behind me during the hardest parts, pressing her small hands into my shoulders.

播放最難過的片段時，特麗站在我身後，小小的手緊緊按着我的肩膀。

I have heard people say that you should never marry a man who does not love his mother.

我聽人說，絕不要嫁給一個不愛自己母親的人。

I was lucky: Miles loved his mother fiercely.

我很幸運：邁爾斯深愛着他的母親。

He loved me, too.

他也愛我。

In losing him, Terry and I have not divvied up this love, as we have with his other things.

失去他以後，我和特麗分掉了他的遺物，但是這份愛是無法分割的，

We have discovered that there is more than enough to share.

我們發現，我們可以分享的東西還有很多。