Partially Empty Nest, with Mixed Feelings

半空巢家庭的复杂情感

Thousands of parents send children off to college for the first time this fall, one of them is commentator Marion Winick. She knows that doesn’t qualify her quite as an empty-nester, and she doesn’t have even that needed term for the big adjustment it’s been for her younger children, who are still at home. They are without their older brother for the first time in their lives.

今年(2006年)秋季成千上万的父母送孩子初入大学校门，他们中有位叫马里恩•威尼克。她知道她还不能算作是空巢族，她对这种重大变化的不适感还不如她尚在家中的更年幼的孩子强烈。孩子们有生以来第一次同他们的哥哥分开。

Last month, the children of our family lost their historic leader when Hayes went off to college a few states south. It took two cars to fit all his stuff, so brother Vince chauffeured1 me and little Jane in my car, and Kenny Hayes followed in his jeep. Vince is so excited about his learner’s permit. It’s exciting for me too, especially when he does things like darting into the left lane when traffic is so thick that Hayes can’t follow us. “What are you doing, Vince?” I shouted. And a few minutes later, when Hayes still hadn’t reappeared, I called him on his cell phone to make sure he knew the name of the exit. He answered with a stream of recriminations2, though he knew I was not driving. Soon afterwards, Vince got annoyed by my direction-giving, and began shouting that I was crazy, and he would never drive anywhere with me again. Right then, Jane began whining from the back seat that she needed to go to the bathroom. “Now! I have to go now!” she cried.

A gas station appeared on the right and our maddened group swerved into it. The boys got out of their respective cars. “Dude,” said Vince to his older sibling3, “I’m so sorry about what happened back there.” “Dude,” said Hayes magnanimously, clapping his back. “It was cool. I wasn’t mad. God, mom is such a freak.” “I know man, let’s go in and get some beef jerky.”

“I’m hungry too!” said Jane. I looked at her accusingly. “Didn’t you have to go to the bathroom?”

In the week since we left Hayes in his dorm, things here have been weird and sad. I keep staring wistfully at the leftovers in the fridge. I can’t seem to adjust the quantities I cook for dinner. And he’s the only one who ate leftovers anyway. However, the house is much quieter without the beatings and the roughhousing that are the older brother’s purview4. And ganging up on mom just isn’t the same.

Meanwhile, the other day I ran into Vince’s guidance counselor, who exclaimed about how different Vince seemed this year. When pressed further she revealed that he had greeted her in the hall. He never did that before, she said. Perhaps with Hayes gone, the balance is shifting. I have a friend in Texas who said she never realized how exclusively her family’s dinner conversations focused on her older son until he left, and they started to talk to the younger one. They’ve learned a lot about Dungeons & Dragons5.

Last night I stared at a plate of homemade sushi rolls left over in the refrigerator. “Vince,” I said, “Isn’t sushi one of your favorite foods?” He thought a minute. “Yeah,” he said, “Give me that.” And settled down beside Jane to watch the Fairly Odd Parents. I think Vince has begun to notice a few job openings around here: Eater-of-leftovers, Friend-of-little-sister’s, Greeter-of-guidance-counselors.

I guess it happens every fall: The parents go around whining about their emptying nests while the little brothers and sisters move up a peg in the pecking order, unable to believe at first that no one’s swatting them down. “Do you miss Hayes?” I asked Vince the other day. “Well,” he said, “He hasn’t been gone that long.” “But you lived with him every day of your life for sixteen years, and he just disappeared!” “Yeah,” said Vince. “That’s what I mean.”

上个月，当海斯去距家几个州的南方上大学后，我家的孩子们失去了曾经的“领导者”。海斯的行李用了两辆车才装下，于是他的弟弟文斯开我的车，载着我和小简，肯尼•海斯开他的吉普车跟在后面。文斯对他的学车准驾感到非常激动。我也非常激动，尤其是当交通拥挤时文斯猛开到左道以至于海斯跟不上我们时。“你在干什么，文斯？”我喊着。几分钟后，仍见不到海斯，我打他的手机确保他知道出口的名字。他报以一大通埋怨，尽管他知道不是我在开车。文斯很快就烦了我指路，开始嚷着说我疯了，再也不会跟我一起开车出去了。就在那时，简在后座上开始嘀咕着说要去厕所。“现在！我现在就要去！”她大叫着。

右边出现了一个加油站，于是我们这伙烦躁的人就拐了进去。男孩子们从各自的车里钻了出来。“哥们，”文斯对他哥哥说，“我对刚才发生的事情感到抱歉。”“哥们，”海斯拍拍文斯后背大度地说，“没关系，我没生气。天哪，妈妈就是太紧张了。”“我知道，伙计，我们进去吃点牛肉干吧。”

“我也饿了！”简说。我面带愠色地看着她。“你不是要去上厕所吗？”

海斯住进了宿舍，在与他分别后的一周里，家里的气氛总是怪怪的，忧伤的气息弥漫开来。我一直愁眉苦脸地盯着冰箱里的剩饭——我看起来还没调整好晚餐的量，而且他是家里唯一吃剩饭的人。然而，没有了争斗和打闹，家里变得安静多了，那些打斗曾¾­是大哥哥的管辖内容，而且围着妈妈转的感觉不能与之同日而语。

在这期间，有一天我遇见了文斯的指导老师，她感叹文斯今年看上去如何大不一样。当我进一步询问时，她说文斯在大厅里向她打招呼。她说，他以前可从来不这么做。也许海斯一走，家里的中心就变了。我有个在得克萨斯州的朋友说，直到她的长子离开家之后，她才意识到她家的晚餐谈话总是聚焦在长子身上，于是他们开始跟小儿子聊天，也因而知道了许多关于《龙与地下城》的故事。

昨晚，我瞪着眼看着冰箱里剩下的一盘自制寿司。“文斯，”我说，“难道寿司不是你喜欢吃的东西吗？”他想了一下，说：“是呀，给我拿过来吧。”他于是坐在简身旁，边吃边看《古怪的父母》。我想文斯开始注意到身边的一些新活儿：吃剩饭、做小妹妹的朋友、向指导老师问候

我想这种事每年秋天都会发生：父母四处走动感叹着渐空的“巢”，年幼的弟弟和妹妹们顺次填补了空缺，起初还无法相信没人压制他们了。“你想念海斯吗？”有一天我问文斯。“呃，”他说，“海斯还没走太久。”“但你同他朝夕相处了16年，他就这样消失了！”“是呀，”文斯说，“我就是那个意思。”

1.chauffeur /`Sof2/ v. 为¡­开车，开汽车(或飞机)运送，开(汽车)。

2.recrimination /rI,krImE`neSEn/ n. 反责，反诉。

3. sibling /`sIblI9/ n. 兄弟(或姊妹)，同胞。

4. purview /`p3vju/ n. (工作、活动、文件、计划等的)范围，意图，权限。

5. Dungeons & Dragons(或D&D、DnD)：《龙与地下城》，是欧美最著名的角色扮演游戏之一，曾被改编出版过400多种读物，80年代中期还曾被制作成电视剧集，2000年上演了以该游戏为故事背景的同名电影。这个游戏的所有相关产品在全世界销售额已¾­超过了10亿美元。 本文指的是该游戏。