Chapter 21

Two weeks after Missy Ryan’s funeral, I was lying in bed one morning when I heard a bird begin to chirp¹ outside the window. I’d left it open the night before, hoping for a break in the heat and humidity. My sleep had been fitful since the accident; more than once, I awoke to find my body covered in sweat, the sheets damp and oily, the pillow soaked through. That morning was no different, and as I listened to the bird, the odor of perspiration², sweet ammonia, surrounded me.

I tried to ignore the bird, the fact that it was in the tree, the fact that I was still alive and Missy Ryan wasn’t. But I wasn’t able to. It was right outside my window, on a branch that overlooked my room, its call shrill³ and piercing.I know who you are,it seemed to say, and I know what you did.  I wondered when the police would come for me.

It didn’t matter if it was an accident or not; the bird knew they would come, and it was telling me that they would be here soon. They would find out what kind of car had been driven that night; they would find out who owned it. There would be a knock at the door and they would come in; they would hear the bird and know I was guilty. It was ludicrous, I know, but in my half-crazed state, I believed it.

I knew they would come.

In my room, wedged between the pages of a book I kept in the drawer, I kept the obituary⁴ from the paper. I’d also saved the clippings about the accident, and they were folded neatly⁵ beside it. It was dangerous to have kept them. Anyone who happened to open the book would find them and would know what I had done, but I kept them because I needed to. I was drawn⁶ to the words, not for comfort, but to better understand what I had taken away. There was life in the words that were written, there was life in the photographs. In this room, on that morning with the bird outside my window, there was only death.  I’d had nightmares since the funeral. Once I dreamed that I’d been singled out by the preacher, who knew what I had done. In the middle of the service, I’d dreamed that he suddenly stopped talking and looked over the pews, then slowly raised his finger in my direction. “There,” he said, “is the man who did this.” I saw faces turn toward me, one after the other, like a wave in a crowded stadium, each focusing on me with looks of astonishment⁷ and anger. But neither Miles nor Jonah turned to look at me. The church was silent and eyes were wide;

I sat without moving, waiting to see if Miles and Jonah would finally turn to see who had killed her. But they did not.

In the other nightmare, I dreamed that Missy was still alive in the ditch when I’d found her, that she was breathing raggedly⁸ and moaning, but that I turned and walked away, leaving her to die. I awoke nearly hyperventilating. I bounded from the bed and paced around the room as I talked to myself, until I was finally convinced it had been only a dream.

Missy had died of head trauma⁹. I learned that in the article as well. A cerebral¹⁰ hemorrhage. As I said, I hadn’t been driving fast, but the reports said she had somehow landed in a way that slammed her head against a protruding¹¹ rock in the ditch. They called it a fluke, a one in a million occurrence.  I wasn’t sure I believed it.

I wondered if Miles would suspect me on sight, whether, in some flash of divine inspiration, he would guess it was me. I wondered what I would say to him, if he confronted me. Would he care that I like to watch baseball games, or that my favorite color is blue, or that when I was seven, I used to sneak¹² outside and study the stars, even though nobody would have guessed that about me? Would he like to know that until the moment I hit Missy with my car, I felt sure that I would eventually make something of myself?

No, he wouldn’t care about those things. What he’d want to know was the obvious:

He would want to know that the killer’s hair is brown, that his eyes are green, that he’s six feet tall. He would want to know where he could find me. And he would want to know how it happened.

Would he, though, like to hear that it was an accident? That if anything, it was more her fault than my own? That had she not been running at night on a dangerous road, more than likely she would have made it home? That she jumped right in front of my car?

Outside, I noticed that the bird stopped chirping¹³. The trees were still, and I could hear the faint hum of a passing car. Already, it was getting hot again.  Somewhere, I knew that Miles Ryan was awake, and I imagined him sitting in his kitchen. I imagined Jonah beside him, eating a bowl of cereal. I tried to imagine what they were saying to each other. But the only thing I could imagine was steady breathing, punctuated¹⁴ by the sounds of spoons clanking against the bowl.

I brought my hands to my temples, trying to rub the pain away. It seemed to throb¹⁵ from somewhere deep inside, stabbing me with fury, matching every heartbeat. In my mind’s eye, I saw Missy in the road, her eyes open, staring up at me.

Staring at nothing at all.

1 chirp   

v.(尤指鸟)唧唧喳喳的叫

参考例句：

• The birds chirp merrily at the top of tree.鸟儿在枝头欢快地啾啾鸣唱。
• The sparrows chirp outside the window every morning.麻雀每天清晨在窗外嘁嘁喳喳地叫。

2 perspiration   

n.汗水；出汗

参考例句：

• It is so hot that my clothes are wet with perspiration.天太热了，我的衣服被汗水湿透了。
• The perspiration was running down my back.汗从我背上淌下来。

3 shrill   

adj.尖声的；刺耳的；v尖叫

参考例句：

• Whistles began to shrill outside the barn.哨声开始在谷仓外面尖叫。
• The shrill ringing of a bell broke up the card game on the cutter.刺耳的铃声打散了小汽艇的牌局。

4 obituary   

n.讣告，死亡公告；adj.死亡的

参考例句：

• The obituary records the whole life of the deceased.讣文记述了这位死者的生平。
• Five days after the letter came,he found Andersen s obituary in the morning paper.收到那封信五天后，他在早报上发现了安德森的讣告。

5 neatly   

adv.整洁地，干净地，灵巧地，熟练地

参考例句：

• Sailors know how to wind up a long rope neatly.水手们知道怎样把一条大绳利落地缠好。
• The child's dress is neatly gathered at the neck.那孩子的衣服在领口处打着整齐的皱褶。

6 drawn   

v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的

参考例句：

• All the characters in the story are drawn from life.故事中的所有人物都取材于生活。
• Her gaze was drawn irresistibly to the scene outside.她的目光禁不住被外面的风景所吸引。

7 astonishment   

n.惊奇，惊异

参考例句：

• They heard him give a loud shout of astonishment.他们听见他惊奇地大叫一声。
• I was filled with astonishment at her strange action.我对她的奇怪举动不胜惊异。

8 raggedly   

破烂地，粗糙地

参考例句：

• The crowd was shouting raggedly now, instead of in chorus as at first. 群众杂乱地喊着，比第一次的口号稍稍见得不整齐。 来自子夜部分
• I took the cigarette he offered, drawing at it raggedly. 我接过他给的烟，在上面胡乱地画起来。

9 trauma   

n.外伤，精神创伤

参考例句：

• Counselling is helping him work through this trauma.心理辅导正帮助他面对痛苦。
• The phobia may have its root in a childhood trauma.恐惧症可能源于童年时期的创伤。

10 cerebral   

adj.脑的，大脑的；有智力的，理智型的

参考例句：

• Your left cerebral hemisphere controls the right-hand side of your body.你的左半脑控制身体的右半身。
• He is a precise,methodical,cerebral man who carefully chooses his words.他是一个一丝不苟、有条理和理智的人，措辞谨慎。

11 protruding   

v.（使某物）伸出，（使某物）突出( protrude的现在分词 )；凸

参考例句：

• He hung his coat on a nail protruding from the wall. 他把上衣挂在凸出墙面的一根钉子上。
• There is a protruding shelf over a fireplace. 壁炉上方有个突出的架子。 来自辞典例句

12 sneak   

vt.潜行(隐藏,填石缝)；偷偷摸摸做；n.潜行；adj.暗中进行

参考例句：

• He raised his spear and sneak forward.他提起长矛悄悄地前进。
• I saw him sneak away from us.我看见他悄悄地从我们身边走开。

13 chirping   

鸟叫，虫鸣( chirp的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• The birds,chirping relentlessly,woke us up at daybreak. 破晓时鸟儿不断吱吱地叫，把我们吵醒了。
• The birds are chirping merrily. 鸟儿在欢快地鸣叫着。

14 punctuated   

v.（在文字中）加标点符号，加标点( punctuate的过去式和过去分词 )；不时打断某事物

参考例句：

• Her speech was punctuated by bursts of applause. 她的讲演不时被阵阵掌声打断。
• The audience punctuated his speech by outbursts of applause. 听众不时以阵阵掌声打断他的讲话。 来自《简明英汉词典》

15 throb   

v.震颤，颤动；(急速强烈地)跳动，搏动

参考例句：

• She felt her heart give a great throb.她感到自己的心怦地跳了一下。
• The drums seemed to throb in his ears.阵阵鼓声彷佛在他耳边震响。