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Ten years later, that bond still shows no sign of loosening. Over the years, young people have gone to war, men have landed on the moon, and presidents have taken office, resigned and been assassinated. Looking across the United States, whether it's Detroit, Washington, or New York, there are crowds of people taking to the streets, and anything can make them furious. A number of countries around the world are competing to break up or collapse: North Vietnam, East Berlin, Bangladesh. Destruction and dissolution are everywhere. However, for the Li family, the connection between them is getting closer and closer, and it is Lydia who binds them together.
James drives home from college every day—he teaches American Cowboy classes year after year and knows every word on the textbook by heart—while recalling the day’s trivial events: two little girls playing hopscotch on the street corner, seeing his He throws pebbles at the car when it stops at a red light; Stanley Hewitt asks him the difference between spring rolls and egg rolls; he passes Mrs. Allen's door and she gives him a fake smile. Only when he returned home and saw Lidya could the bitterness in his heart dissipate. Because of her, he thought, everything was different. Lydia would have said to her friends, "Don't be stupid, Stan, how would I know?" She was calm and confident. She would say, "Good afternoon, Vivian," and look directly at her neighbor with her big blue eyes. These fantasies became more and more difficult for him to extricate himself from.
Every day, as Marilyn unwraps a frozen pie or defrosts a Salisbury steak—she refuses to cook, and the family silently accepts this as the price to pay for her reappearance—she They will secretly plan what books, science exhibitions, and summer tutoring classes to buy for Lydia. "As long as you're interested," she told Lydia every time, "As long as you're willing." She sincerely solicited her daughter's opinion every time, but she didn't realize that she was holding her breath nervously when she spoke. breathe. And Lydia noticed. "Yes," she said, and she said "yes, yes" every time. Hearing these two words, her mother's breathing returned to normal. Between laundry breaks, Marilyn would read the day's newspaper from cover to cover, column after column—and she saw a glimmer of hope: Yale University was accepting women, and then Harvard University was accepting them. Americans gradually learned several new words: anti-discrimination action; the affirmative rights amendment; Ms. Marilyn weaves a gorgeous future for Lydia with golden threads in her heart, and she believes that her daughter also hopes to have such a future: Lydia wears high heels and a white coat, with a stethoscope hanging around her neck; Lydia stands on the operating table In front of her, a circle of men around her watched her skillful skills in awe. For Marilyn, this future seemed to become more real with each passing day.
Every day Nath would sit quietly at the dinner table while his father and Lydia talked about her friends and her mother asked about Lydia's studies that day. By the time they turned around and asked him like they were responsible, his tongue was already tied because his father - he remembered the TV that was broken by his father and the slap he received - didn't want to hear what he had to say. Space and stuff like that, and that's all Nath read and thought about. Whenever he had time, he searched for relevant books in the school library: space flight, astrodynamics, combustion, propulsion, and satellites. After listening to his son's stuttering answers, his parents' spotlight returned to Lydia. At this time, Nass retreated to his room and continued to read his aviation magazine, as if he was hiding pornographic books. Store them under the bed as well. He doesn't mind this constant "eclipse" state. Every night Lydia would knock on the door of his room, looking quiet and pitiful. He knew what her unspoken words were, and their core message was: Don't let go. When Lydia was away—contemplating homework or preparing for a science fair—he would stick his telescope out the window and gaze at the stars in the night sky, exploring places where he might one day venture alone.
Lydia herself - she is the center of the family's universe, even though she does not want to be this center - is burdened with the important task of uniting the family every day, forced to carry the dreams of her parents, suppressing the bitter bubble that keeps rising in her heart. Year after year passed like this, as Johnson, Nixon, and Ford came into and out of office. Lydia grew slim and slender; Nath grew taller. There were wrinkles at the corners of Marilyn's eyes; silver frost hung on James' temples. Lydia knew what her parents were desperate for—even if they didn't say it. She found that it seemed that only trivial things could bring them happiness. So she spent her summer studying algebra, put on a dress and took elementary dance classes, and signed up to sit in on college biology classes on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Been busy all summer. "Yes, yes, yes".
(What about Hannah? They moved Hannah's bassinet into the attic bedroom, where it was filled with things they no longer wanted, and even when Hannah got older, they often forgot she existed—like One night, Marilyn placed four plates on the dining table. It wasn't until Hannah came to the table that she realized that one was missing. Hannah also seemed to understand her place in the family universe. She started from the quiet The baby grows up to be an observant child: she likes to hide in corners and cupboards, behind the sofa, under the tablecloth, withdrawing from the family's sight and minds, thus ensuring that the territorial division of the home does not change at all.)
Now, ten years have passed since that terrible year, and everything has changed dramatically. For others, 1976 was not an ordinary year, and this abnormality reached its peak in that unusually cold winter - with the headline "It Snows in Miami" printed on the front page of the newspaper. Fifteen-and-a-half-year-old Lydia had just started her winter vacation. In five months, she would die. In December of that year, she was alone in the room, opened her school bag, and pulled out a physics test paper. "55" was written in red pen on the top of the paper.
The biology class was very difficult from the beginning, but she passed the first few tests by rote memorization of concepts such as "boundary", "door" and "class". Then the classes got harder, but she was lucky. The boy sitting to her right studied hard, wrote in big words, and never blocked the answers on the test paper. “My daughter,” Marilyn told Mrs. Woolf—Dr. Woolf—that fall, “is a genius and got an A on a college course, and she was the only girl in the class. "Because of this, Lydia never told her mother that she didn't understand what Kreb's cycle was and couldn't explain how mitosis worked. When her mother framed her transcript from college, Lydia hung it on the wall of her room and pretended to smile.
After biology class, Marilyn came up with a new suggestion. "This fall, we will directly let you take natural science as an elective." She said, "After you have taken the college biology class, I believe high school physics will be no problem." Lydia knew that this was her mother's favorite topic to discuss, and she could only Nod yes. "You'll meet older students," her father said, "and make some new friends." He blinked, remembering that at Lloyd, "older" meant "better." The sophomores, however, spoke only to their classmates—either answering their French translation assignments or reciting the Shakespeare plays they would be tested on that afternoon. They only treated Lydia with courtesy, with the indifferent kindness of locals on their faces, treating Lydia as a foreigner. As for the physics word problems—two cars colliding, shells fired, trucks skidding on ice, etc.—she racked her brains and couldn't come up with an answer. The racing car loaded on the turning truck, the rotating roller coaster, the pendulum and the weights... These things followed her like a shadow, and the more she thought about them, the more meaningless they became. Why did the car fall? Why do roller coasters derail? As she tried to figure out why, she seemed to see gravity coming out, pulling all the cars down one after another, as if pulling on a belt. When I read at night, the equations—with their lowercase k’s, uppercase M’s, and the Greek letter Θ—seem to turn into a dense thorny bramble. Above the desk, on the postcard her mother gave her, Einstein sticks out his tongue at her.
Her test scores were getting lower and lower, looking like a weird weather forecast chart: 90 in September, 85 in October, less than 75 in November, and around 60 before Christmas. In the last exam, she scored 62 points, which was considered a pass, but she almost failed. After class, she tore the paper into small pieces and threw them into the toilet on the third floor before going home. Now, she got a score of 55. Although Teacher Kelly didn't write "F" on the paper, she still didn't dare to look at the shocking red score. She stuffed the paper into her locker and hid it for two weeks, beneath a stack of textbooks, as if the combined weight of algebra, history, and geography would crush it. Teacher Kelly had mentioned her declining grades to her, hinting that he might call her parents himself—if necessary. Finally, Lydia promised that after the Christmas vacation, she would take the papers signed by her mother back to school.
All her life, she could hear her mother's heartbeat shouting firmly and forcefully: Doctor, doctor, doctor. Her mother wanted this dream so badly that Lydia knew she didn't need to say it, her wish had always been there. Apart from being a doctor, Lydia could not imagine that she could have any other future or a different life. That would be as absurd as trying to imagine that the sun revolves around the moon and that there is no such thing as air in nature. She once thought about forging her mother's signature, but her handwriting was too round and fat, and it looked like it was written by a little girl, so she couldn't deceive anyone.
In the last week, something even scarier happened. Lydia pulled a white envelope from under her mattress, half-expecting the contents to change—the writing might have rotted away over the past eight days, so she could blow them away like dust. Blow away, leaving only a blank sheet of paper. However, no matter how she blew it, those words remained unchanged. Dear Mr. Li: Thank you for participating in our school’s early admission process. We are very pleased to welcome you to Harvard University’s Class of 1981.
For the past few weeks, Nath had opened his mailbox every afternoon to check his mail, sometimes forgetting to say hello to his mother or even put on his shoes. Lydia could feel his worry. At the breakfast table last week, Marilyn placed the math homework she had helped Lydia correct on the cereal box. "I checked last night after you went to bed," she said, "There's an error in question twenty-three, honey." Five, a year, even six months ago, Lydia would still be in her I found sympathy in my brother's eyes. "I understand. I understand." He only had to blink at her, and she could receive his sympathy and comfort. But this time, Nass was immersed in reading the book he borrowed, and didn't notice Lydia's clenched fingers and the eyes that instantly turned red. Nath was too busy imagining his future to hear Lydia's unspoken words.
He was the only one who kept listening to Lydia. Lydia has had no friends since Marilyn disappeared and reappeared. That fall, during recess, she would hide aside and stare at the clock tower of the First Federal Bank in the distance. Every minute the clock ticked, she closed her eyes and imagined what her mother might be doing—wiping the counters, filling the kettle, peeling oranges—as if the weight of these details could keep her mother in the house and not let her leave. Later, she felt that maybe these idle times made her lose the opportunity to make friends, or maybe she never had such an opportunity anyway. One day, she opened her eyes and found Stacey Sherwin standing in front of her. There was Stacey Sherwin, who had waist-length blond hair, and there were several girls around her. At Midwood Kindergarten, Stacey Sherwin was able to master the art of controlling people. A few days ago, as soon as she announced that "Jane Collins stinks like waste water," Jane Collins was immediately kicked out of the small group she was in, her glasses were also taken away, and her face was covered with tears. The other girls in Stacey's group snickered. Lydia watched this turn of events from afar in horror. On the first day of kindergarten, Stacy once asked her: "Do Chinese people celebrate Thanksgiving?" and "Do Chinese people have belly buttons?"
"After school, everyone will go to my house." Stacy stood in front of her and said, she winked slightly at Lydia, "You can come too."
Lydia was suspicious. Was she really chosen by Stacey Sherwin? Stacey kept her eyes on the ground, a hair tie wrapped around her finger, and Lydia stared at her as if she could read her thoughts. Does she look shy or cunning? She couldn't tell. Then she thought of her mother, leaning on the kitchen window looking out, waiting for her to come home.
"I can't go," she finally said. "My mother said I have to go home right after school."
Stacey shrugged and walked away, the other girls following her. Suddenly, they burst into laughter, and Lydia didn't know if they were laughing at her.
If she went to Stacey's house, would they be nice to her or mock her? She will never know. She could only say no to birthday parties, invitations to go skating or swimming at the leisure centre. Every afternoon, she would rush home, eager to see her mother's face and make her happy. By second grade, the other girls stopped asking her. She told herself that she didn't care because her mother would always be waiting for her and that was the only thing that mattered. In the days ahead, Lydia watched Stacey Sherwin—first braiding, then straightening, then wearing hair accessories—her blonde hair, waving to her friends and pulling them toward her. Around you, it's like a shining gem. She saw Jane Pittman pass a note to Pam Sanders, who opened it under the table and smiled secretly; she saw Shelly Brierley divide one Wrapping Green Arrow chewing gum, when the gum wrapped in tin foil passed over her and passed to others, she smelled the sweet mint flavor.
Only Nath was the spice of her life that made it bearable. Every day since kindergarten, Nas would save a seat for her—in the cafeteria, he would let her sit across from him; on the school bus, he would put books on the green plastic seat next to him to occupy her seat. . If Lydia arrives first, she will hold a seat for Nath. Because of Nath, she would never ride home alone in the car while others chatted in small groups; she would never have to timidly ask, "Can I sit here?" while worrying about rejection. They made an unspoken agreement that he would always save a place for her. Because of this, she can always say to herself: "Someone will come to sit in this position, and I am not alone."
Now Ness is leaving. More letters would come from Harvard. In a few days, we will send you some information and forms for your reference when choosing your major. Lydia couldn't help but fantasize that if she took all the letters from Harvard out of the mail and stuffed them under the mattress one by one so that Nath wouldn't find them, he would have no choice but to keep them. At home now.