(单词翻译:单击)
I’d mentioned that I was interested in meeting my aunt, and my mother had stunned me then, just as she’d stunned me now, by saying, “Why don’t we go together?”
我提到我有兴趣见姨妈，就像她现在让我大吃一惊一样，母亲当时让我大吃了一惊，她说：“我们为什么不一起去看姨妈呢?”
And what do I remember of that singular day?
我还记得那个特别的日子吗?
How uncharacteristically animated and affectionate my mother was when she saw Adele, for one thing.
首先，母亲见到阿黛尔(姨妈)时，显得异常活泼和亲切。
You could almost discern the outlines of the little girl she’d been, the one who would circle Adele’s crib and play a made-up game she called “Here, Baby.”
你几乎可以分辨出那个小女孩的轮廓，她会绕着阿黛尔的婴儿床转一圈，玩一个她称之为“这里，宝贝”的自创游戏。
Also, how petite my aunt was—4 foot 8, dumpling-shaped—and how slack the musculature was around her jaw, which may have had something to do with the fact that my aunt had no teeth.
此外，我的姨妈是多么娇小--4英尺8英寸高，身形如饺子一般--下巴周围的肌肉组织十分松弛，这可能与我姨妈没有牙齿有关。
She had supposedly taken a medication that had made them decay, though there’s really no way to know.
据说，她服用了一种会使牙齿腐烂的药物，尽管无从得知事实如何。
But what stayed with me most from that day—what I thought about for years afterward—were the needlepoint canvases marching along the walls in Adele’s bedroom.
但从那天起，让我印象最深的——也是多年后我一直念念不忘的——是阿黛尔卧室墙壁上的一幅幅刺绣画。
My mother and I both gasped when we saw them.
看到这些刺绣画，我和母亲都倒吸了一口气。
My mother, too, was an avid needlepointer in those years, undertaking almost comically ambitious projects—the Chagall windows, the Unicorn Tapestries.
那些年，我母亲也是一个狂热的绣娘，承担着雄心勃勃的但又几近滑稽的项目——夏加尔的窗户，独角兽挂毯。
Adele’s handiwork was simpler, cruder, but there it was, betokening the same passion, the same obsession.
阿黛尔的手工刺绣画更简单，也更粗糙，但它就在那里，象征着同样的激情，同样的痴迷。
One other thing: My mother and I discovered that day that Adele could carry a tune—and when she sang, she suddenly had hundreds of words at her disposal, not just yes and no, the only two words we heard her speak.
还有一件事：那天，我和母亲发现阿黛尔唱得准调子——当她唱歌时，突然几百个词语都由她支配，而不仅仅是“是”和“不是”，这是我们听到她说的唯一两个词。
Again, we were amazed.
我们再次感到惊讶。
For years, my mother was a pianist and studied opera; her technical skills were impeccable, her sight-reading was impeccable, her ear was impeccable.
多年来，我的母亲是一名钢琴家，学习歌剧；她的技艺无懈可击，她的视奏能力无懈可击，她的听觉无懈可击。
She could pick up the telephone and tell you that the dial tone was a major third.
她可以接起电话，告诉你拨号音是大三度音。
My mother couldn’t get over it—the needlepoints, the singing.
我母亲无法释怀——那些刺绣画，那些歌声。
I felt like I was staring at some kind of photonegative of a twin study.
我觉得我在盯着某种研究双胞胎的底片。
So here we are, 23 years later, and Adele is greeting us at the door. She is wearing a bright-red sweater.
23年后的今天，我们到了，阿黛尔在门口迎接我们。她穿着一件鲜红的毛衣。
There is my mother at the door. She, too, is wearing a bright-red sweater.
我妈妈在门口，她也穿着一件鲜红的毛衣。
Adele is wearing a long, chunky beaded necklace she has recently made at her day program.
阿黛尔戴着她最近在日间活动中制作的一条又长又粗的串珠项链。
And my mother, like her sister, is wearing a long, chunky beaded necklace she has recently made—not at a day program, obviously, but for Hadassah.
而我的母亲，像她的妹妹一样，也戴着她最近制作的一条又长又粗的串珠项链——显然不是在日间活动中制作的，而是为Hadassah(慈善组织)制作的。
