It is this happiness, I suppose (which is really a few months old by now), that gets me to thinking upon my return to Rome that I need to do something about David. That maybe it's time for us to end our story forever. We were already separated, that was official, but there was still a window of hope left open that perhaps someday (maybe after my travels, maybe after a year apart) we could give things another try. We loved each other. That was never the question. It's just that we couldn't figure out how to stop making each other desperately, shriekingly, soul-punishingly miserable.

这样的喜悦（事实上至今已有数个月之久），使我在返回罗马时，考虑该与大卫做个了断。或许该让我们的故事画上句点。我们已正式分开，却仍开着一扇希望之窗，期待有一天（或许在我的旅行过后，或许在分开一年后）我们能重新来过，我们彼此相爱。这从无疑问。只不过我们不明白如何不让对方痛苦得绝望、尖叫、痛彻心扉。

Last spring David had offered this crazy solution to our woes, only half in jest: "What if we just acknowledged that we have a bad relationship, and we stuck it out, anyway? What if we admitted that we make each other nuts, we fight constantly and hardly ever have sex, but we can't live without each other, so we deal with it? And then we could spend our lives together—in misery, but happy to not be apart."

上个春天，大卫为我们的苦难提出疯狂的解决方法，只不过有点半开玩笑：如果我们承认我们关系恶劣，却硬着头皮撑下去，会有什么结果？如果我们承认我们让彼此发狂，我们一天到晚吵架，几乎不再做爱，却无法离开彼此而生活，于是应付下去，会有什么结果？然后我们可以白头偕老、共度一生——悲惨度日，但庆幸没分道扬镳。

Let it be a testimony to how desperately I love this guy that I have spent the last ten months giving that offer serious consideration.

我认真考虑过这项提议，由此可见这个与我共处十个月的男人让我爱得多痴狂。

The other alternative in the backs of our minds, of course, was that one of us might change. He might become more open and affectionate, not withholding himself from anyone who loves him on the fear that she will eat his soul. Or I might learn how to . . . stop trying to eat his soul.

我们脑海中的另一个解决办法，当然是我们其中一人可能改变。他可能变得更开明、更温柔，不再因为恐惧被爱他的人吞噬灵魂而退避三舍。或者我可能学会如何……不再尝试吞噬他的灵魂。

So many times I had wished with David that I could behave more like my mother does in her marriage—independent, strong, self-sufficient. A self-feeder. Able to exist without regular doses of romance or flattery from my solitary farmer of a father. Able to cheerfully plant gardens of daisies among the inexplicable stone walls of silence that my dad sometimes builds up around himself. My dad is quite simply my favorite person in the world, but he is a bit of an odd case. An ex-boyfriend of mine once described him this way: "Your father only has one foot on this earth. And really, really long legs . . ."

我时常希望和大卫在一起的时候，举止多像一点我母亲在婚姻中的独立、坚强、自主的态度，一个自给自足的人。无须从我那孤寂农人的父亲那儿定期服用浪漫或赞美，即可安然存活。她在我父亲有时给自己筑起的沉默之墙当中，仍能欢欢喜喜地栽种雏菊。我父亲是世界上我最喜爱的人，但他有点古怪。我的一个前男友曾如此描述过他：你爹只有一只脚踩在地面上，而且腿很长很长……

What I grew up watching in my household was a mother who would receive her husband's love and affection whenever he thought to offer it, but would then step aside and take care of herself whenever he drifted off into his own peculiar universe of low-grade oblivious neglect. This is how it looked to me, anyway, taking into account that nobody (and especially not the children) ever knows the secrets of a marriage. What I believed I grew up seeing was a mother who asked nothing of anybody. This was my mom, after all—a woman who had taught herself how to swim as an adolescent, alone in a cold Minnesota lake, with a book she'd borrowed from the local library entitled How to Swim. To my eye, there was nothing this woman could not do on her own.

在我成长的家，我看着母亲在她丈夫想到给予爱与感情的时候接受他的爱，在他沉浸于自己、罔顾一切的世界时，则避向一旁照顾自己。总之，这是我的看法，如果还考虑到没有人（尤其是小孩）知道婚姻的秘诀的话。我成长期间所看见的母亲，对任何人皆无所求。这毕竟是我的母亲——青春期的她，独自在明尼苏达的寒冷湖泊中自学游泳，带着她从当地图书馆借来的《学游泳》一书。在我看来，没有一件事是这女人无法独力完成的。

But then I'd had a revelatory conversation with my mother, not long before I'd left for Rome. She'd come into New York to have one last lunch with me, and she'd asked me frankly—breaking all the rules of communication in our family's history—what had happened between me and David. Further disregarding the Gilbert Family Standard Communications Rule-book, I actually told her. I told her everything. I told her how much I loved David, but how lonely and heartsick it made me to be with this person who was always disappearing from the room, from the bed, from the planet.

然而，在我动身前往罗马前不久，我和我母亲进行了一场启示性的对谈。她到纽约和我吃最后一餐午饭，她坦白问我——打破我们家族史上所有的沟通规范——我和大卫之间出了什么问题。我又一次无视于吉尔伯特家族标准沟通手册，竟然告诉了她，我一五一十地告诉了她。我跟她说我深爱大卫，但这个老是从房间、床上、地球上销声匿迹的人，让我多么孤单消沉。

"He sounds kind of like your father," she said. A brave and generous admission.

听来起他和你父亲有点像。她说。一种勇敢而宽容的供认。

"The problem is," I said, "I'm not like my mother. I'm not as tough as you, Mom. There's a constant level of closeness that I really need from the person I love. I wish I could be more like you, then I could have this love story with David. But it just destroys me to not be able to count on that affection when I need it."

问题是，我说，我不像我的母亲。妈，我不像你那么坚强。我需要从我爱的人身上得到一定程度的亲。我希望自己能多像你一点，那我就能和大卫拥有这段爱情故事。可是在我需要的时候，无法仰赖这份感情，这简直要毁了我。

Then my mother shocked me. She said, "All those things that you want from your relationship, Liz? I have always wanted those things, too."

接着，我的母亲的话使我大吃一惊。她说：小莉，你想从两人关系中得到的一切，也是我一直想要的东西。

In that moment, it was as if my strong mother reached across the table, opened her fist and finally showed me the handful of bullets she'd had to bite over the decades in order to stay happily married (and she is happily married, all considerations weighed) to my father. I had never seen this side of her before, not ever. I had never imagined what she might have wanted, what she might have been missing, what she might have decided not to fight for in the larger scheme of things. Seeing all this, I could feel my worldview start to make a radical shift.

那一刻，仿佛我坚强的母亲伸出手来打开拳头， 让我终于看见她几十年来为了和我父亲维持快乐的婚姻（若基于种种考虑，她确实婚姻快乐）而承受的伤痕。我从未见过她这一面，从来不曾。我未曾想象过她要什么，她错失了什么，在为大局着想而决定不去争取的东西。看见的这一切，使我感到我的世界观开始发生急剧变化。

If even she wants what I want, then . . .?

倘若连母亲都需要我要的东西，那么……？