纽约客小说：《第一任丈夫》（3）
为什么看着他赢是如此的令人满足？
Why was it so satisfying to see him win?
这样挺好，凌晨三点钟的厨房，屋子里没有别的灯光，这种奇异的亲密。拉维想，他们处在时间之外，等待着规则重新闯入这片安宁。如果真的下了雪，学校也许会放假。阿尔伯克基的气候尚属温和；拉维是在中西部长大的，那儿的学校只有刮起暴风雪才会停课，小雪冰霜根本不算数。她的第一任丈夫曾经带她去过沙漠；她想她可以为那份礼物而感谢他。分手的时候，他们在十二年里一同收集的东西他并不想收回多少。是因为慷慨？罪恶感？抑或只是因为不在乎？
It was nice, this strange intimacy in the kitchen at three in the morning, no other light in the house. They were outside of time, Lovey thought, waiting for the rules to kick in again. If it did snow, school might be closed. Albuquerque was not accustomed to weather; Lovey had grown up in the Midwest, where snow days required an actual blizzard, instead of mere flurries or patches of ice. Her first husband had brought her to the desert; she could thank him, she supposed, for that gift. When they parted, he hadn’t wanted much of what they’d collected together, in their twelve years. Was that generosity? Guilt? Or simple indifference?
是卡莱布先听到了孩子醒来的动静，他的手悬停在棋盘中央，朝起居室的方向点了点头。“四十五秒，”他告诉拉维，说的是母乳需要微波加热四十五秒，“我来。”拉维趁着男孩去开冰箱的机会从自己的钞票里拿出一张五百块放回了银行。
Caleb heard the baby first, his head tipped toward the living room as his hand halted above the board in mid-count. “Forty-five seconds,” he told Lovey, meaning the breast milk and the microwave. “I can do it.” Lovey took the opportunity while the boy was at the refrigerator to slip a five-hundred- dollar bill from her stack of cash back into the bank.
她解不开儿童椅上复杂的绑带，于是孩子哭得愈发厉害。卡莱布默默地打开带扣，还找到了这个小女孩的奶嘴，在另一个三岁女孩完全醒来之前阻止了她的哭叫。“你真是个好孩子。”拉维反复对他说。温热的奶瓶在厨房里等待着。拉维只需要坐下来摆出喂奶的姿势，女孩的脸凑在她胸前。她给孩子喂奶，卡莱布就自己给两边走棋子，大声计数，问拉维要不要买下电气公司。“不要。”她说。他从不质疑她对地产的选择。他似乎接受了这种想法：只有他一个人知道制胜的秘诀是把所有东西都买下来。
She could not figure out the car seat’s elaborate buckle, so the child’s crying became hysterical. Caleb silently undid the clasp, then found the three-year-old’s pacifier and stoppered her with it before she fully woke as well. “You’re a good boy,” Lovey told him repeatedly. In the kitchen, the warm bottle waited. Lovey had only to sit down and assume the position, the girl’s face beside her own breast. While she fed the baby, Caleb played both sides of the game, counting aloud, asking if Lovey wanted to buy the electric company or not. “Not,” she said. Her pickiness about property he never questioned. He seemed to accept the idea that he alone knew that buying everything was the secret to success.
卡莱布的妹妹们跟卡莱布一点都不像。她们想要什么就大声索取，她们进到哪个房间就立刻开始努力成为众人瞩目的焦点。女孩用脑袋撞着拉维的肋骨，小手握成拳头捶打奶瓶；要是她没剪指甲，她已经把自己的脸挠破流血了。她们需要很多的关注。她们发出很大的噪音。不可能对三岁大的孩子讲道理，尝试是没用的。她不明白轮流和分享的概念，只会采取简单粗暴的途径，比如霸占和尖叫。卡莱布以前对拉维说过：“如果她们是小狗，你就可以用个笼子把她们关起来。”
Caleb’s sisters were utterly unlike their brother. They demanded what they wanted. They entered a room and immediately began competing to be its center of attention, the baby now knocking her head into Lovey’s sternum, making fists with her hands and banging at her bottle; if her nails weren’t clipped, she’d rake her own face until it bled. They required a lot of attention. They made a great deal of noise. The three-year-old could not be reasoned with; it was useless to try. She did not understand taking turns or sharing, and resorted to crude short-cutting substitutions like grabbing and screaming. “If they were dogs,” Caleb had told Lovey of his sisters, “you could put them in a cage.”
“如果她们是小狗，”拉维说，“你可以送她们去收容站。”
“If they were dogs,” Lovey said, “you could take them to the pound.”
小女孩呛住了，卡莱布提醒拉维，是奶瓶的错；比起母亲的胸脯，瓶子里的奶出来得更快，幼儿习惯了用力吮吸，所以会呛到自己。“贪心的小姑娘，”拉维喃喃自语，“你爸爸在哪儿呢。”
When the baby began gagging, Caleb informed Lovey that the bottle was to blame, that the milk came out faster than it did from his mother’s breast, that the baby was used to sucking harder, so she choked herself. “Greedy girl,” Lovey murmured. “I wonder where your daddy is.”
“我不知道，”卡莱布说，“他骑车出去了，忘了带头盔。”
“I don’t know,” Caleb said. “But he rode his bike and he forgot his helmet.”
“真危险。”不过，显然比开车安全得多。亚戎鲜少保持清醒，法庭强制他戒酒才有效，每次他们全家团聚都大有隐忧。他会温顺地坐在桌边，琢磨着自己手中的苏打水，其他人假装没留意到他的每一口啜饮。这么过几个月，会有又一个孩子出生、一份更好的工作接踵而至，事情会有转机——然后就是半夜打来的电话。伯纳蒂特始终都喜欢这样的男孩子，坏男孩，富有魅力而又难以控制。她的第一个男朋友把车开进湖里淹死了。若是换了另一晚，伯纳蒂特可能也坐在他车上。亚戎也许会与那个男孩交好，那就有意思了。伯纳蒂特并没有真正得到跨越中学生阶段的机会。她读大学的第一学期就怀上了卡莱布。因为怀了这个孩子，她才有所收敛，上完了那一年学，那便是她仅有的大学经历。事实上，卡莱布的到来为大家分散了一部分注意力。他祖父离开了，不仅离开拉维而且离开了他的三个女儿，搬到千里之外的北方，开始了新的生活——取代那个男人的，是这个漂亮乖顺的小男孩。
“Dangerous.” Although safer, by far, than driving. Aaron’s sobriety was tenuous, court-ordered, the elephant in the room at any family get-together. He would sit meekly at the table studying his sparkling water while others pretended not to be aware of his every sip. Months would pass—a new child would be born, a better job would come along, things would be looking up—and then the phone call in the middle of the night. Bernadette had always loved boys like this, bad boys, attractive and uncontrollable. Her first boyfriend had drowned in a lake after driving a car into it. Some other night, and Bernadette could have been in that car with him. Aaron had probably been friends with that boy—it would make sense. Bernadette hadn’t really had a chance to get much past high school. She’d got pregnant with Caleb in her first semester at the U. The child had been responsible for her cleaning up her act and completing that year, her only college experience. In fact, Caleb’s arrival had given everyone some distraction. His grandfather had gone—left not only Lovey but his daughters, moved a thousand miles north, and started anew—but in his place was this beautiful, easy child.
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