Anna

HERE’S MY QUESTION: What age are you when you’re in Heaven? I mean, if it’s Heaven, you should be atyour beauty-queen best, and I doubt that all the people who die of old age are wandering around toothlessand bald. It opens up a whole additional realm of questions, too. If you hang yourself, do you walk around allgross and blue, with your tongue spitting out of your mouth? If you are killed in a war, do you spend eternityminus the leg that got blown up by a mine?

I figure that maybe you get a choice. You fill out the application form that asks you if you want a star view ora cloud view, if you like chicken or fish or manna for dinner, what age you’d like to be seen as by everyoneelse. Like me, for example, I might pick seventeen, in the hopes I grow boobs by then, and even if I’m apruny centegenarian by the time I die, in Heaven I’d be young and pretty.

Once at a dinner party I heard my father say that even though he was old old old, in his heart he was twenty-one. So maybe there is a place in your life you wear out like a rut, or even better, like the soft spot on thecouch. And no matter what else happens to you, you come back to that.

The problem, I suppose, is that everyone’s different. What happens in Heaven when all these people aretrying to find each other after so many years spent apart? Say that you die and start looking around for yourhusband, who died five years ago. What if you’re picturing him at seventy, but he hit his groove¹ at sixteenand is wandering around suave² as can be?

Or what if you’re Kate, and you die at sixteen, but in Heaven you choose to look thirty-five, an age you nevergot to be here on Earth. How would anyone ever be able to find you?

Campbell calls my father at the station when we’re having lunch, and says that opposing counsel wants totalk about the case. Which is a really stupid way to put it, since we all know he’s talking about my mother.

He says we have to meet at three o’clock in his office, no matter that it’s Sunday.

I sit on the floor with Judge’s head in my lap. Campbell is so busy he doesn’t even tell me not to do it. Mymother arrives right on the dot and (since Kerri the secretary is off today) walks in by herself. She has made aspecial effort to pull her hair back into a neat bun. She’s put on some makeup³. But unlike Campbell, whowears this room like an overcoat he can shrug⁴ on and off, my mom looks completely out of place in a lawfirm. It is hard to believe that my mother used to do this for a living. I guess she used to be someone else,once. I suppose we all were.

“Hello,” she says quietly.

“Ms. Fitzgerald,” Campbell replies. Ice.

My mother’s eyes move from my father, at the conference table, to me, on the floor. “Hi,” she says again.

She steps forward, like she is going to hug me, but she stops.

“You called this meeting, Counselor,” Campbell prompts.

My mother sits down. “I know. I was…well, I’m hoping that we can clear this up. I want us to make adecision, together.”

Campbell raps his fingers on the table. “Are you offering us a deal?”

He makes it sound so businesslike. My mother blinks at him. “Yes, I guess I am.” She turns her chair towardme, as if only the two of us are in the room. “Anna, I know how much you’ve done for Kate. I also know shedoesn’t have many chances left…but she might have this one.”

“My client doesn’t need coercing—”

“It’s okay, Campbell,” I say. “Let her talk.”

“If the cancer comes back, if this kidney transplant doesn’t work, if things don’t wind up the way we all wishthey would for Kate—well, I will never ask you to help your sister again…but Anna, will you do this one lastthing?”

By now, she looks very tiny, smaller even than me, as if I am the parent and she is the child. I wonder howthis optical illusion took place, when neither of us has moved.

I glance at my father, but he’s gone boulder-still, and he seems to be doing everything he can to follow thegrain of wood in the conference table instead of getting involved.

“Are you indicating that if my client willingly donates a kidney, then she will be absolved⁵ of all othermedical procedures that may be necessary in the future to prolong Kate’s life?” Campbell clarifies.

My mother takes a deep breath. “Yes.”

“We need, of course, to discuss it.”

When I was seven, Jesse went out of his way to make sure I wasn’t stupid enough to believe in Santa. It’sMom and Dad, he explained, and I fought him every step of the way. I decided⁶ to test the theory. So thatChristmas I wrote to Santa, and asked for a hamster, which is what I wanted most in the world. I mailed theletter myself in the school secretary’s mailbox. And I steadfastly⁷ did not tell my parents, although I droppedother hints about toys I hoped for that year.

On Christmas morning, I got the sled and the computer game and the tie-dyed comforter I had mentioned tomy mother, but I did not get that hamster because she didn’t know about it. I learned two things that year:

that neither Santa, nor my parents, were what I wanted them to be.

Maybe Campbell thinks this is about the law, but really, it’s about my mother. I get up from the floor and flyinto her arms, which are a little like that spot in life I was talking about before, so familiar that you slide rightback to the place where you fit. It makes my throat hurt, and all those tears I’ve been saving come out of theirhiding place. “Oh, Anna,” she cries into my hair. “Thank God. Thank God.”

I hug her twice as tight as I would normally, trying to hold on to this moment the same way I like to paint theslanted light of summer on the back wall of my brain, a mural to stare at during the winter. I put my lips rightup to her ear, and even as I speak I wish I wasn’t. “I can’t.”

My mother’s body goes stiff. She pulls away from me, stares at my face. Then she pushes a smile onto herlips that is broken in several spots. She touches the crown of my head. That’s it. She stands up, straightensher jacket, and walks out of the office.

Campbell gets out of his seat, too. He crouches⁸ down in front of me, in the place where my mother was. Eyeto eye, he looks more serious than I have ever seen him look. “Anna,” he says. “Is this really what youwant?”

I open my mouth. And find an answer.

1 groove   

n.沟，槽；凹线，（刻出的）线条，习惯

参考例句：

• They're happy to stay in the same old groove.他们乐于墨守成规。
• The cupboard door slides open along the groove.食橱门沿槽移开。

2 suave   

adj.温和的；柔和的；文雅的

参考例句：

• He is a suave,cool and cultured man.他是个世故、冷静、有教养的人。
• I had difficulty answering his suave questions.我难以回答他的一些彬彬有礼的提问。

3 makeup   

n.组织；性格；化装品

参考例句：

• Those who failed the exam take a makeup exam.这次考试不及格的人必须参加补考。
• Do you think her beauty could makeup for her stupidity?你认为她的美丽能弥补她的愚蠢吗？

4 shrug   

v.耸肩(表示怀疑、冷漠、不知等)

参考例句：

• With a shrug,he went out of the room.他耸一下肩，走出了房间。
• I admire the way she is able to shrug off unfair criticism.我很佩服她能对错误的批评意见不予理会。

5 absolved   

宣告…无罪，赦免…的罪行，宽恕…的罪行( absolve的过去式和过去分词 )； 不受责难，免除责任 [义务] ,开脱（罪责）

参考例句：

• The court absolved him of all responsibility for the accident. 法院宣告他对该事故不负任何责任。
• The court absolved him of guilt in her death. 法庭赦免了他在她的死亡中所犯的罪。

6 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

7 steadfastly   

adv.踏实地，不变地；岿然；坚定不渝

参考例句：

• So he sat, with a steadfastly vacant gaze, pausing in his work. 他就像这样坐着，停止了工作，直勾勾地瞪着眼。 来自英汉文学 - 双城记
• Defarge and his wife looked steadfastly at one another. 德伐日和他的妻子彼此凝视了一会儿。 来自英汉文学 - 双城记

8 crouches   

n.蹲着的姿势( crouch的名词复数 )v.屈膝，蹲伏( crouch的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• He crouches before rabbit hutch, shed sad tear for the first time. 他蹲在兔窝前，第一次流下了伤心的眼泪。 来自互联网
• A Malaysian flower mantis, which crouches among flowers awaiting unsuspecting prey. 一只马来西亚花螳螂，蜷缩在鲜花中等待不期而遇的猎物。 来自互联网