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Unit 8 Housewifely Arts
第八單元 家庭主婦的藝術
Megan Mayhew Bergman
梅根·梅休·伯格曼
I am my own housewife, my own breadwinner. I make lunches and change light bulbs. I kiss bruises and kill copperheads from the backyard creek with a steel hoe. I change sheets and the oil in my car. I can make a pie crust and exterminate humpback crickets with a homemade glue board, though not at the same time. I'd like to compliment myself on these things because there's no one else around to do it.
我一個人又當爹、又當媽。我自己做飯、換燈泡，自己清理傷口，自己用鋤頭殺死從后院爬進來的銅頭蝮，自已換車坐墊、換車油。我能自己做餅皮用自家做的粘板消滅蟋蟀。我之所以這么賢惠是因為周圍真的沒有任何人能幫我分擔。
Turn left, Ike says.
左轉，艾克說。
There is no left-only a Carolina road that appears infinitely flat, surrounded by pines and the occasional car dealership billboard. I lost my mother last spring and am driving nine hours south with 7-year-old so that I might hear her voice again.
左邊根本就沒有路。面前只有一條直得不能再直的卡羅琳娜路。路兩邊種著松樹，偶爾有一些汽車經銷商的廣告牌。去年春天我媽媽去世了，在為了再聽一次她的聲音，我帶著7歲的兒子要往南開9個小時的車。
Do you need to pee? I ask. We could stop for lunch.
你想尿尿嗎？我問。我們正好找個地方停下吃午餐。
Chicken nuggets? He asks.
雞塊嗎？他問。
If I were a better mother, I would say no, there would be bread, carrot, and seedless grapes. If I were a better daughter, Ike would have known his grandmother, spent more time in her arms.
如果我是個好媽媽，我會說堅決說不行，他得吃面包、胡蘿卜、無籽葡萄。如果我是個好女兒，艾克就應該知道他的姥姥，多在姥姥懷里待一會。
How much longer? Ike asks.
還有多久？艾克問。
Four hours.
四個小時。
Four hours till what?
四個小時到哪？
You'll see, I say.
到了你就知道了。
What I'm having trouble explaining to Ike is this. We're driving to a small roadside zoo outside of Myrtle Beach so that I can hear my mother's voice ring through the beak of thirty-six-year-African gray parrot, a bird that I hated, a bird that could beep like a microwave, ring like a phone, and sneeze just like me.
我總是不愿意跟兒子解釋這些問題。我們要去在美爾特沙灘外的一個小型路邊動物園。在那我能從一只36歲的灰色非洲鸚鵡嘴里聽見媽媽的聲音。我曾經那么恨這只鸚鵡，他能學微波爐的聲音、電話的聲音，還能生動地學我打噴嚏的聲音。
In moments of profound starvation, the exterminator told me, humpback crickets may devour their own legs, though they cannot regenerate limbs.
清除害蟲的工人告訴我，蟋蟀在快餓死的時候會吃自己的腿，雖然吃了就再也長不回來了。
Our house has been for sale for a year and contract has finally come in, contingent on a home inspection. The firm I work for has offered to transfer me to Connecticut-in a state where Ike has a better chance of escaping childhood obesity, God, and conservative political leanings. I can't afford to leave until the house sells. My realtor has tried scented candles and apple pies in the oven, but no smokescreen will detract from the cricket infestation.
我們的房子已經掛牌出售一年了。終于有人打算買但是還得取決于最后的房屋驗收。我所在的那個公司提出來要將我調到康涅狄格州去工作，那個州里，艾克會有更好的機會避免得兒童肥胖癥，也能避免受宗教的控制，以及保守的政治傾向的影響。但是除非我把這個房子賣了，否則我們都搬不起家。房產經紀人已經嘗試在我家放香味的蠟燭，在烤箱里放蘋果派，但是這些根本不能擺脫那些橫行的蟋蟀。
They jump, the realtor said before I left town with Ike. Whenever I open the door to the basement, they hurl themselves at me. You'll never pass a home inspection, he said. Do something.
在我們走之前經紀人還說：“蟋蟀跳得到處都是。每次我打開地下室的門，這些該死的蟋蟀都向我撲過來。你要是再不做點什么就永遠都不可能通過房屋驗收。”
