我完全不知道,丈夫居然在對我施暴

THE BEGINNING: "CHILDREN WERE NOT PART OF OUR PLAN"

一開始："我們沒打算要孩子"

The day the test came back with two blue stripes, I put on my jeans and The Flicks T-shirt - the one with Alfred Hitchcock on the back - and drove to work. The Flicks was an indie movie house, and I worked there with artsy types who had lines of poetry tattooed on their forearms, dyed hair, and Converse sneakers. We wanted to make art. Children were not a part of our collective plan.

那天，我用驗孕棒做了測試，測試結果：兩條藍色的槓。我穿上牛仔褲和The FlicksT恤--背後是阿爾弗雷德·希區柯克的照片--開車去上班了。The Flicks是一家獨立影院，我在那兒工作，和一幫藝術家打交道，他們的前臂紋有幾行詩、頭髮染過色、穿匡威運動鞋。我們想創作藝術。孩子不在我們的集體計劃之中。

That morning I strode through the kitchen - past the assistant manager who was making curried sweet potato soup over the large gas range - stood before the espresso machine, turned the machine on to make a latte, and stopped.

那天早晨，我走過廚房--經過正在用煤氣竈煮咖喱紅薯湯的副經理身邊，來到咖啡機前，打開咖啡機制作拿鐵，然後我停了下來。

I didn't know if I could drink coffee. Coffee might be poison now. I listened to the whirring of the espresso grinder, the machine grinding the beans into fragments. I'm not ready, I mouthed.

我不知道自己能不能喝咖啡。或許，現在喝咖啡無異於喝毒藥。我聽着咖啡機轉動的聲音，聞着咖啡機研磨咖啡豆散發出香味。我還沒準備好，我喃喃道。

A couple of weeks earlier, while we were sitting on my couch talking, my boyfriend Caleb's face suddenly started to flush. He looked down and brushed his hand over his head, which I knew meant he was feeling nervous or insecure. He looked up quickly and blurted out, "Kelly, I want to marry you."

幾周前，當我們坐在沙發上聊天的時候，男朋友Caleb的臉突然開始變紅。他低了低頭，用手捂着他的頭，我知道這是他緊張或不安的表現。他快速擡頭，脫口而出道："凱麗，我想和你結婚。"

I sat stunned. It wasn't a proposal as much as a declaration. We had only been together for five months, and because Caleb lived in the woods, we had only seen each other a few times a week. Twice, he had panicked and disappeared for a week or longer. The first time, I wrote his absence off to jitters. The second time, I called and left a message on his cell phone: "If you are interested in a relationship with me, you will call me today, and you will continue to call me on a regular basis. If not, then this is goodbye."

我驚呆了。這一點都不像求婚，倒像是宣告一樣。我們才談了5個月，因爲Caleb住在樹林裏，所以我們每週只見面幾次。有兩次，他驚慌失措，消失了一週以上的時間。第一次，我以爲他是因爲不安才離開的。第二次，我給他打了電話，留了語音信息："如果你想和我談戀愛，就今天給我回個電話，然後你就可以定期和我打電話了。如果沒興趣，那就再見。"

He called almost immediately, and then showed up at my apartment that evening, his face and posture apologetic. He wasn't willing to lose me, he said. He knew that now.

他立馬打來電話，那天晚上出現在我的公寓門口，他滿臉抱歉。他不願失去我，他說。他現在知道了。

Our relationship hadn't been romantic or blissful, but in the moment after he had declared he wanted to marry me, all I could remember were the blissful parts. I looked into his wide blue eyes and remembered lying on that beige couch while he played his guitar and sang "Pale Blue Eyes."

我們的戀情並不浪漫、也不幸福，但在他宣佈想和我結婚的那一刻，我記得的只有我們幸福的時刻。我看向他大大的藍色眼睛，想起了他躺在米白色的沙發上彈着吉他唱着"暗淡的藍色眼睛"時的情景。