“Hey,” I say.
Anna goes to dry her hands under the blower. The air doesn’t feed out, not reading the sensor1 of her palm forsome reason. She waves her fingers beneath the machine again, then stares at them, as if trying to make surethat she’s not invisible. She bangs on the metal.
When I lean over and wave a hand beneath it, hot air breathes into my palm. We share this small warmth,hobos around a kettle-bellied fire. “Campbell tells me you don’t want to testify.”
“I don’t really want to talk about it,” Anna says.
“Well, sometimes to get what you want the most, you have to do what you want the least.”
She leans against the bathroom wall and crosses her arms. “Who died and made you Confucius?” Anna turnsaway, then reaches down to pick up my knapsack for me. “I like this. All the colors.”
I take it and slip it over my shoulder. “I saw old women weaving them, when I was in South America. It takestwenty spools3 of thread to make this pattern.”
“Truth’s like that,” Anna says, or it’s what I think she says, but by then she has left the room.
I am watching Campbell’s hands. They move around a lot while he is talking; he almost seems to use them topunctuate whatever he’s saying. But they’re trembling a little, too, and I attribute this to the fact that hedoesn’t know what I’m going to say. “As the guardian4 ad litem,” he asks, “what are your recommendations inthis case?”
I take a deep breath and look at Anna. “What I see here is a young woman who has spent her life feeling anenormous responsibility for her sister’s well-being5. In fact, she knows she was brought into this world tocarry that responsibility.” I glance at Sara, sitting at her table. “I think that this family, when they conceivedAnna, had the best of intentions. They wanted to save their older daughter; they believed Anna would be awelcome addition to the family—not just because of what she would provide genetically6, but also becausethey wanted to love her and watch her grow up well.”
Then I turn to Campbell. “I also understand completely how, in this family, it became critical to do anythingthat was humanly possible to save Kate. When you love someone, you’ll do anything you can to keep themwith you.”
As a little girl, I used to wake up in the middle of the night remembering my wildest dreams—I was flying; Iwas locked in a chocolate factory; I was queen of a Caribbean isle7. I would wake with the smell of frangipaniin my hair or clouds caught in the hem2 of my nightgown until I realized that I was somewhere different. Andno matter how hard I tried, I might fall asleep again but I could not will myself back into the fabric8 of thatdream I’d been having.
Once, during the night Campbell and I spent together, I woke up in his arms to find him still sleeping. Itraced the geography of his face: from the cliff of his cheekbone to the whirlpool of his ear to the laugh linesravined beside his mouth. Then I closed my eyes and for the first time in my life fell right back into thedream, in the very spot where I’d left it.
“Unfortunately,” I say to the Court, “there is also a point when you have to step back and say that it’s time tolet go.”
For a month after Campbell dumped me, I did not get out of bed except when forced to go to Mass or to sit atthe dinner table. I stopped washing my hair. Under my eyes were dark circles. Izzy and I, at very first glance,looked completely different.
On the day that I mustered9 the courage to get out of bed of my own volition10, I went to Wheeler and trolledaround the boathouse, carefully staying hidden until I found a boy on the sailing team—a summer sessionstudent—who was taking out one of the school’s skiffs. He had blond hair, instead of Campbell’s black. Hewas stocky, not tall and lean. I pretended I needed a ride home.
Within an hour I had fucked him in the backseat of his Honda.
I did it because if there was someone else, then I wouldn’t smell Campbell on my skin and taste him on theinside of my lips. I did it because I had been feeling so hollow inside that I feared floating away, like ahelium balloon that rose so high you couldn’t even see the faintest splash of color.
I felt this boy whose name I couldn’t be bothered to remember grunting11 and heaving inside me; I was thatempty and that far away. And suddenly I knew what became of all those lost balloons: they were the lovesthat slipped out of our fists; the blank eyes that rose in every night sky.
“When I first was given this assignment two weeks ago,” I tell the judge, “and I started to look at thedynamics of this family, it seemed to me that medical emancipation12 was in Anna’s best interests. But then Irealized I was guilty of making judgments13 the way everyone else in this family does—based solely14 onphysiological effects, instead of psychological ones. The easy part of this decision is to figure out what’smedically right for Anna. Bottom line: it is not in her best interests to donate organs and blood that has nomedical benefit for Anna herself but prolongs her sister’s life.”
I see Campbell’s eyes spark; this endorsement15 has surprised him. “It’s harder to come up with a solution,though—because although it may not be in Anna’s best interests to be a donor16 for her sister, her own familyis incapable17 of making informed decisions about that. If Kate’s illness is a runaway18 train, then everyonereacts from crisis to crisis without figuring out the best way to bring this into the station. And using the sameanalogy, her parents’ pressure is a switch on the track—Anna isn’t mentally or physically19 strong enough toguide her own decisions, knowing what their wishes are.”
Campbell’s dog gets up and begins to whine20. Distracted, I turn to the noise. Campbell pushes away Judge’ssnout, never taking his eyes off me.
“I see no one in the Fitzgerald family who can make unbiased decisions about Anna’s health care,” I admit.
“Not her parents, and not Anna herself.”
Judge DeSalvo frowns down at me. “Then Ms. Romano,” he asks, “what’s your recommendation to thecourt?”
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收听单词发音
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1
sensor
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| n.传感器，探测设备，感觉器（官） | |
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hem
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| n.贴边，镶边；vt.缝贴边；(in)包围，限制 | |
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3
spools
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| n.（绕线、铁线、照相软片等的）管( spool的名词复数 )；络纱；纺纱机；绕圈轴工人v.把…绕到线轴上（或从线轴上绕下来）( spool的第三人称单数 )；假脱机（输出或输入） | |
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4
guardian
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| n.监护人；守卫者，保护者 | |
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well-being
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| n.安康，安乐，幸福 | |
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genetically
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| adv.遗传上 | |
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7
isle
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| n.小岛，岛 | |
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fabric
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| n.织物，织品，布；构造，结构，组织 | |
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mustered
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| v.集合，召集，集结（尤指部队）( muster的过去式和过去分词 )；（自他人处）搜集某事物；聚集；激发 | |
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10
volition
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| n.意志；决意 | |
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grunting
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| 咕哝的，呼噜的 | |
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12
emancipation
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| n.（从束缚、支配下）解放 | |
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13
judgments
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| 判断( judgment的名词复数 )； 鉴定； 评价； 审判 | |
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14
solely
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| adv.仅仅，唯一地 | |
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endorsement
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| n.背书；赞成，认可，担保；签(注)，批注 | |
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16
donor
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| n.捐献者；赠送人；(组织、器官等的)供体 | |
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17
incapable
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| adj.无能力的，不能做某事的 | |
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18
runaway
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| n.逃走的人，逃亡，亡命者；adj.逃亡的，逃走的 | |
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19
physically
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| adj.物质上，体格上，身体上，按自然规律 | |
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whine
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| v.哀号，号哭；n.哀鸣 | |
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