Linda Zhang wandered into her son’s room and sat for a while. She visits there from time to time, after her husband has gone to work at the restaurant and their other kids have gone to school.
琳达·张（音）走进儿子的房间，坐了一会儿。在丈夫去餐馆上班，其他孩子上学后，她会时不时地去那里看看。
The Ferrari logo sheets were still on her son’s bed. The Nintendo video game controllers were in his closet. Decorative cutouts of an elephant and a butterfly were on the wall.
带法拉利标识的床单还在儿子的床上。任天堂游戏机的手柄在他的衣橱里。墙上挂着大象和蝴蝶的装饰画。
And then there were the many tributes, gifts and drawings that poured in after her son, Peter Wang, was shot multiple times and killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. On this morning, Ms. Zhang pointed out a framed letter.
她的儿子彼得·王（音）在马乔里·斯通曼·道格拉斯高中遭枪击身亡后，她收到了许多悼念、礼物和绘画作品。这天早上，琳达·张指着一封装在镜框里的信。
“Maybe the governor of Florida?” she said, peering at a page signed by Senator Marco Rubio. There was also a portrait of Peter, which Ms. Zhang said might have been drawn by a famous artist, but she wasn’t quite sure.
“可能是佛罗里达州州长？”她盯着有参议员马尔科·卢比奥签名的一页说。还有一幅彼得的肖像，琳达·张说这幅画可能出自一位著名艺术家之手，但她不太确定。
“My English isn’t good,” she explained in Mandarin Chinese. “Peter was always my translator.”
“我的英语不好，”她用中文解释道。“彼得一直是我的翻译。”
一家人把彼得的奖品陈列在他的卧室里。
Six years after 17 families lost loved ones in the Parkland, Fla., massacre, Ms. Zhang and her husband, Kong Feng Wang, are navigating the wilderness of grief in unusual isolation. Other Parkland parents spoke out about school safety and gun control, ran for school board seats, spearheaded lawsuits and set up foundations to honor their slain children. At group events, many found solace and a safe space to vent their frustrations.
六年前，在佛罗里达州帕克兰市的大屠杀中，17个家庭失去了亲人。如今，琳达·张和她的丈夫王孔峰（音）以不寻常的孤立状态在悲伤的荒野中穿行。帕克兰的其他家长公开谈论学校安全和枪支管制，竞选学校董事会席位，带头提起诉讼，成立基金会纪念他们遇害的孩子。在集体活动中，许多人找到了安慰和发泄沮丧的安全空间。
Peter’s parents, who do not speak English fluently, struggled to keep up with those conversations, or to take the kind of action that might have given them an outlet for their grief. In court, a place of catharsis for some families, they relied on translators to speak for them and to give them a bare understanding of the proceedings.
彼得的父母英语不流利，他们很难跟上这些对话，也很难采取什么能让自己发泄悲伤的行动。对于一些家庭来说，法庭是一个宣泄情绪的地方，而他们在法庭上则要依靠翻译为自己说话，并且靠翻译才能对诉讼程序有一个粗略的了解。
“All I want is to be able to do something for Peter,” Mr. Wang said. “But how can we? We don’t speak the language. We don’t know the culture.”
“我只想为彼得做点什么，”王孔峰说。“但是我们怎么做得到呢？我们不会说这种语言。我们不了解这种文化。”
Well-meaning friends and relatives have urged the couple to move on and focus on raising their two younger sons, Jason and Alex. But Ms. Zhang and Mr. Wang are not sure what moving on means. They have shrugged off suggestions from others that they see a therapist, a practice still widely stigmatized in Chinese culture.
善意的朋友和亲戚敦促这对夫妇继续生活，专心抚养他们的两个小儿子杰森和亚历克斯。但琳达·张和王孔峰并不确定继续生活意味着什么。他们不理会别人让他们去看心理医生的建议，这种做法在中国文化中仍被广泛污名化。
Short on connections and comforts, Mr. Wang has largely disappeared into his work and Ms. Zhang into her grief.
由于缺乏人际交往和安慰，王孔峰基本上沉浸在工作中，琳达·张则沉浸在自己的悲伤中。
“You can see that they have so many things to express to the world but they can’t,” said Lin Chen, a cousin of Peter who has served as a translator in court for Mr. Wang and Ms. Zhang and works as a trauma psychotherapist. “There’s been a lot of accumulation of these negative emotions, and when that becomes so big, it can crush a person even more.”
“你可以看出，他们有很多东西想向世界表达，但他们做不到，”彼得的表姐陈琳（音）说。她在法庭上为王孔峰和琳达·张担任翻译，同时也是一名创伤心理治疗师。“这些负面情绪已经积累了很多，等它变得太大的时候，就会更沉重地击垮一个人。”
The American dream
美国梦
在帕克兰枪击案的审判中，张女士出席了量刑审判。甥女陈琳代表她宣读了一份翻译成英文的声明。
In August 2022, Ms. Zhang took the witness stand, choking back sobs as Ms. Chen read a statement in English on her behalf.
2022年8月，琳达·张站在证人席上，当陈琳用英语为她宣读声明时，她强忍着泪水。
“My name is Linda,” Ms. Chen said, as her aunt sat trembling beside her in the courtroom. “I am Peter Wang’s mom. It is so difficult to write this letter because I don’t know how to use language to express the pain of losing my oldest son, Peter.”
“我的名字是琳达，”在法庭上，陈琳读道，她的阿姨坐在她身边，浑身颤抖。“我是彼得·王的妈妈。写这封信是非常艰难的，因为我不知道如何用语言来表达失去大儿子彼得的痛苦。”
A few months before, prosecutors notified the victims’ families that they had the option of reading an impact statement at the sentencing trial of Nikolas Cruz, the gunman. Ms. Zhang had initially been unsure whether she would accept. Even in Chinese, talking openly about grief felt so unnatural. And what could such a statement really accomplish?
几个月前，检察官通知受害者家属，他们可以选择在对枪手尼古拉斯·克鲁兹的量刑审判中宣读影响陈述。琳达·张最初并不确定自己要不要做这件事。即使是用中文，公开谈论悲伤也会让人觉得很不自然。而且，这样的声明到底能够起到什么作用呢？
But at the urging of her niece, Ms. Chen, and some of the other victims’ parents, Ms. Zhang agreed to prepare some words. It felt right to honor Peter’s memory in this way. Lying in bed one morning, Ms. Zhang told Ms. Chen, who sat beside her taking notes, what she wanted to say:
但在甥女陈琳和其他一些受害者父母的敦促下，琳达·张同意准备一些文字。她觉得以这种方式纪念彼得是对的。一天早上，琳达·张躺在床上，对坐在她旁边记笔记的陈琳说出她想说的话：
Peter was the perfect son. Everyone always told me how lucky I was to have him. Our house is now so quiet over the holidays.
彼得是个完美的儿子。每个人都跟我说，我能拥有他是多么幸运。如今，我们家在假日里都是那么安静。
Using her aunt’s thoughts as guidance, Ms. Chen translated and drafted the statement in English that she later read in court.
陈琳以阿姨的想法为指导，翻译并起草了这份后来在法庭上宣读的声明。
There was so much more that Ms. Zhang wanted the world to know about Peter, so much more she could have said in her own language. But for now, these words — words she could not even understand — would have to do.
琳达·张还想让世人更加了解彼得，还有很多事情，她可以用自己的语言说出来。但现在，使用这种语言——这种她甚至听不懂的语言——就只能这样了。
For Ms. Zhang and Mr. Wang, the English language had long been an obstacle.
对于琳达·张和王孔峰来说，英语一直是一个障碍。
Born in rural Fujian, a coastal province in southern China, Mr. Wang grew up speaking Mandarin and a local Fujianese dialect. He did not know any English, but at age 21, he decided to move to the United States to look for work anyway.
王孔峰出生在中国南部沿海省份福建的农村，从小说普通话和福建方言。他不懂英语，但在21岁时，他决定搬到美国去找工作。
琳达·张在彼得的房间。“他去世那天发生的一切，我看到他尸体那天发生的一切，我都能清楚地记得。之后发生的一切都是一片模糊。”
Like many young Fujianese seeking better opportunities, he paid a smuggler to take him to South America. Then, from Suriname, he and other young Chinese men made a treacherous journey by boat and foot across Central America. Three months after he left Fujian, he crossed the border into the United States. It was 1996.
像许多寻求更好机会的福建年轻人一样，他付钱给蛇头，带他去了南美。然后，他和其他中国年轻人从苏里南出发，靠着乘船和徒步穿越中美洲，历经艰险。离开福建三个月后，他越过边境进入美国。那是1996年的事。
“We were so young,” said Mr. Wang, 47. “We didn’t know what it meant to be afraid.”
“我们那时候太年轻了，”47岁的王孔峰说。“不知道什么叫害怕。”
Mr. Wang quickly found work in the back of a Chinese restaurant in Cleveland. He stayed in the job for several years, living in a workers’ dormitory and earning about $800 a month, most of which he used to pay off the $40,000 debt he owed to his smuggler.
王孔峰很快在克利夫兰一家中餐馆的后厨找到了工作。这份工作他一干就是好几年，住在工人宿舍，每月大约挣800美元，其中大部分用来偿还欠蛇头者的四万美元。
In Cleveland, he met Ms. Zhang, who also worked at the restaurant and had come to the United States by a similar route. Both Ms. Zhang, 44, and Mr. Wang said they understood that learning English would broaden their lives, and had tried several times to study it. But they eventually gave up.
在克利夫兰，他遇到了同样在这家餐厅工作的琳达·张，她也是通过类似的途径来到美国的。44岁的琳达·张和王孔峰都说，他们明白学习英语可以拓宽自己的生活，并且多次尝试学习英语。但最终还是放弃了。
“It just never really sank in,” Ms. Zhang said.
“我从来没有真正学进去，”琳达·张说。
In 2002, the couple married and briefly moved to New York City, a hub for Fujianese immigrants in the United States, to have their first baby. Ms. Zhang (traditionally, Chinese women keep their names) gave birth to a healthy, eight-pound baby boy in Brooklyn. They gave him the Chinese name Mengjie. “Meng” was a family name. “Jie” meant “hero.”
2002年，两人结了婚，短暂移居至美国福建移民的聚集地纽约市，生下了他们的第一个孩子。琳达·张（传统上，中国女性婚后保留自己的姓氏）在布鲁克林生下了一个健康的、3.6公斤左右的男婴。他们给他取了个中文名字“孟杰”（音）。“孟”是一个姓。“杰”的意思是“英雄”。
For an English name, they chose Peter.
他们选择彼得作为孩子的英文名字。
“I heard the name on television and thought it sounded nice,” Ms. Zhang said. “And it was easy to pronounce.”
“我在电视上听到这个名字，觉得听起来不错，”琳达·张说。“而且发音很容易。”
Around 2005, Mr. Wang and Ms. Zhang moved to Miami after hearing from a friend about an opportunity to open their own takeout Chinese restaurant. There, Peter witnessed his family’s struggles firsthand, she said. He saw his father robbed at gunpoint in the restaurant and his mother mugged by a stranger.
2005年前后，王孔峰和琳达·张从一个朋友那里听说，有个开中国外卖餐厅的机会，于是他们搬到了迈阿密。她说，在那里，彼得亲眼目睹了家人的困境。他看到父亲在餐馆里被人持枪抢劫，母亲也被一个陌生人抢劫。
王孔峰和琳达·张在自家餐馆里。彼得去世的那天，他们原本和他一起庆祝中国新年。
Peter developed a sense of responsibility from a young age, Mr. Wang and Ms. Zhang said. Like many children of immigrants, he was his parents’ bridge to the English-speaking world, translating correspondence from school and interpreting at doctor’s appointments.
王孔峰和琳达·张说，彼得从小就很有责任感。像许多移民的孩子一样，他是父母通往英语世界的桥梁，翻译学校的信件，在看医生时担任口译。
Peter often played the roles of caretaker and translator for his extended family, too. During a family trip to Disney World, Peter insisted on holding the toddler daughter of a family friend in his arms for 20 minutes so she could see the fireworks. When his cousin Aaron moved to Florida from China, Peter took him under his wing at school and helped him communicate with the other students.
彼得也经常为大家庭扮演看护者和翻译的角色。在一次全家前往迪士尼乐园的旅行中，彼得坚持要帮一个朋友抱她襁褓中的女儿，抱了20分钟，就为了让她可以看到烟花。当他的表弟亚伦从中国搬到佛罗里达时，彼得在学校里照顾他，帮助他与其他学生交流。
The two cousins became best friends, bonding over their shared love for Power Rangers, dinosaurs and video games and their shared disdain for Saturday Chinese school and after-school tutoring. In 2012, they spent a summer together in China. Aaron had been feeling anxious — it was his first time back in China after moving to the United States. But seeing Peter immediately put him at ease.
这对表兄弟成为了最好的朋友，因为他们都喜欢《恐龙战队》(Power Rangers)、恐龙和电子游戏，也都不喜欢周六的中文学校和课后辅导。2012年，他们一起在中国过暑假。亚伦一直感到焦虑——这是他搬到美国后第一次回到中国。但一看见彼得，他就放心了。
“As soon as I opened the door, Peter jumped out with a new toy and was like, ‘Let’s play,’” recalled Aaron Chen, 22, now a student at the University of Florida. “All of a sudden it was like we were right back in the States. He made me feel very secure.”
“我一打开门，彼得就拿着一个新玩具跳出来，说，‘我们一块儿玩吧，’”22岁、现为佛罗里达大学学生的亚伦·陈（音）回忆说。“突然之间，我们好像又回到了美国。他让我感到非常安全。”
In 2015, Mr. Wang and Ms. Zhang opened a Japanese buffet restaurant in Pompano Beach, Fla., with Ms. Zhang’s siblings. Eventually, they saved up enough money to move from Miami to Coral Springs, and then to a gated community in Parkland, an affluent, predominantly white suburb that had some of the best public schools in the area.
2015年，王孔峰和琳达·张以及后者的兄弟姐妹在佛罗里达州庞帕诺海滩开了一家日式自助餐厅。最终，他们攒够了钱，从迈阿密搬到了珊瑚泉，然后又搬到帕克兰的一个封闭式社区。帕克兰是一个以白人为主的富裕郊区，拥有该地区一些最好的公立学校。
Ms. Zhang and Mr. Wang became U.S. citizens. They embraced some American traditions, like installing Christmas lights on their house.
王孔峰和琳达·张成了美国公民。他们接受了一些美国传统，比如在他们的房子上安装圣诞彩灯。
But they lived in a Chinese-speaking world that seemed parallel to the one their neighbors inhabited. Mr. Wang and Ms. Zhang often hosted parties for their Chinese friends and family in their spacious home, raucous affairs with platters of fried noodles and seafood from the restaurant and the cousins racing around.
但他们生活在一个讲中文的世界，似乎与邻居们生活在两个平行的世界。王孔峰和琳达·张经常在宽敞的家中为来自中国的亲朋好友举办派对，餐桌上摆满炒面和海鲜，表兄弟姐妹们在一起玩得不亦乐乎，场面非常热闹。
“Our house was the place to be,” Ms. Zhang recalled.
“我们家是最热闹的地方，”琳达·张回忆。
‘What could we do?’
“我们能做什么？”
“如果我能说英语，我会做很多事情，我会去参加每一场追悼会，每一次家长聚会，”琳达·张说。
Feb. 14, 2018, was Valentine’s Day and the night before Chinese New Year’s Eve. Peter and his friends were planning to come by that evening to celebrate, so Mr. Wang was at the restaurant, Miyako Japanese Buffet, preparing.
2018年2月14日是情人节，也是中国的除夕。彼得和他的朋友们计划当晚过来庆祝，所以王孔峰在他的宫古日式自助餐厅（音）里做准备。
Then he heard about a shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Soon he was in a hotel lobby with Ms. Zhang, surrounded by police and school officials, waiting alongside many other worried parents.
然后，他听说马乔里·斯通曼·道格拉斯高中发生了枪击案。很快，他和琳达·张来到一家酒店大堂，和许多忧心忡忡的家长一起等待，周围都是警察和学校官员。
That’s where they learned that Peter was among the 14 students and three staff members killed.
在那里，他们得知遇害的14名学生和三名教职员工中有彼得。
The days and weeks afterward were a numbing march of grieving rituals. Family and friends helped plan a funeral. Buddhist priests helped to pick out a grave according to feng shui principles.
之后的几天和几周里，是令人麻木的哀悼。家人和朋友帮忙策划葬礼。佛教僧侣根据风水原理帮他们挑选坟墓。
Peter was buried in Bailey Memorial Cemetery in North Lauderdale, Fla., in his Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps uniform. Later, West Point posthumously admitted Peter for taking heroic action by holding a classroom door open so that his classmates could escape from the rampaging gunman.
彼得穿着初级预备役军官训练团的制服，被安葬在佛罗里达州北劳德代尔的贝利纪念公墓。后来，西点军校追认了彼得的英雄事迹——他撑住教室的门，让同学们逃离狂暴的枪手。
佛罗里达州北劳德代尔，彼得的墓碑。
Many families, including some of Peter’s relatives, found ways to channel their grief to salvage something from their irretrievable loss.
许多家庭，包括彼得的一些亲戚，都想方设法化解悲痛，从无法挽回的损失中挽回一些东西。
Several of Peter’s cousins participated in the March for Our Lives, which became a national student-led movement for gun control. In the beginning, Ms. Zhang and Mr. Wang were active, too. They traveled with the other victims’ families to Tallahassee, where they met with lawmakers and participated in a march for stricter gun control measures.
彼得的几个表兄弟姐妹参加了“为我们的生命游行”，这场活动已经成为学生领导的全国性控枪运动。一开始，王孔峰和琳达·张也很活跃。他们与其他受害者家属一起前往塔拉哈西，在那里会见立法者，并参加了要求采取更严格枪支管制措施的游行。
But the talk all felt like muffled noise, and their efforts seemed futile. They had grown up in a country where citizens had little sway over the government’s policies. And like many immigrants, they saw the American political system as impenetrable. The couple began to withdraw.
但是所有的谈话都像是含混的噪音，他们的努力似乎是徒劳的。他们成长在一个公民对政府政策几乎没有影响力的国家。和许多移民一样，他们认为美国的政治制度令人难以理解。两夫妇开始不再参与这些。
“What could we do?” Mr. Wang said. “The law is for politicians. We are just ordinary people.”
“我们能怎么办呢？”王孔峰说。“法律是为政客服务的。我们只是普通人。”
They felt somewhat less isolated when they attended gatherings with the relatives of the other Parkland victims. Ms. Zhang said she could feel their pain viscerally.
当他们与其他帕克兰受害者的亲属一起参加聚会时，他们的孤立感有所减轻。琳达·张说，她能直接感受到他们的痛苦。
“There’s a bond there of sudden loss,” said Tony Montalto, who lost his daughter, Gina, in the shooting. “We would try to talk as best we could.”
“突然失去亲人会让人产生一种联系，”托尼·蒙塔尔托说，他的女儿吉娜也在枪击案中丧生。“我们会尽力交谈。”
With Mr. Montalto’s help, Ms. Zhang and Mr. Wang tried to set up a foundation. But without someone who could speak English and handle the day-to-day administrative tasks, the foundation has been mostly dormant. And because of the language barrier, Ms. Zhang and Mr. Wang gradually lost touch with most of the other parents.
在蒙塔尔托的帮助下，王孔峰和琳达·张试图建立一个基金会。但由于没有能说英语、能处理日常管理工作的人，该基金会基本上处于休眠状态。由于语言障碍，王孔峰和琳达·张逐渐与大多数其他家长失去了联系。
“If I could speak English, I would do so much, I would go to every memorial, every gathering of parents,” Ms. Zhang said in a recent interview.
“如果我能说英语，我会做很多事情，我会去参加每一场追悼会，每一次家长聚会，”琳达·张在最近的一次采访中说。
Family divide
家庭分裂
连着好几年，每到彼得的忌日前后，或在当天，张女士都会纹一个纪念彼得的新文身。
In Chinese culture, the loss of a child is seen not only as a great calamity for a family, but as a potential sign of more misfortune to come. Out of superstition as well as grief, some choose to steer away from the tragedy rather than confront it head-on.
在中国文化中，失去一个孩子不仅被视为一个家庭的巨大灾难，而且可能预示着更多的不幸即将到来。出于迷信和悲伤，一些人选择避开悲剧，而不是直面它。
Not long after the shooting, Mr. Wang’s mother — Peter’s grandmother — went around the house and took down photos of Peter, including a family portrait that had been taken a few months before. Distraught, Ms. Zhang rushed to the photo studio where they had taken the portrait and was relieved to find it was still on file.
枪击事件发生后不久，王孔峰的母亲——彼得的祖母——把家里检查了一遍，取下了彼得的照片，包括一张几个月前拍的全家福。心急如焚的琳达·张冲到他们拍摄这张照片的照相馆，发现照片还在档案中，这才松了一口气。
Today, the photo hangs on the wall in the couple’s bedroom. But in the stairway, some collage frames that once displayed photos of Peter remain empty.
如今，照片挂在这对夫妇的卧室墙上。但在楼梯旁，一些一度展示着彼得照片的相框仍是空的。
Determined to preserve Peter’s memory, Ms. Zhang turned to a canvas that she alone could control. She has five tattoos honoring him. Most of them were inked on Valentine’s Day — the date of his death. One on her shoulder shows his initials over a broken heart framed by angel wings. Another, on her chest, has Peter’s name and a heart and a butterfly next to the English words “You always live in my heart.”
张女士决心要保存关于彼得的记忆，她选择了一张她能控制的画布。她有五个纪念他的文身。其中很多是在情人节（他的忌日）那天纹的。她肩膀上的一处文身是他的名字缩写在由天使翅膀环绕的破碎之心上方，蝴蝶旁边有着英文字样“你永远活在我心中”。
In some ways, Ms. Zhang has heeded the advice of family members urging her not to dwell on her grief. Last year was the first since Peter’s death that Ms. Zhang did not get a tattoo.
在某些方面，张女士听取了亲属们让她不要沉湎于悲痛的建议。去年是彼得死后张女士第一次没有纹新文身。
在本来应该是彼得21岁生日的那天，王孔峰与儿子杰森。他们住在佛罗里达，而张女士与小儿子亚历克斯主要住在中国。
But in other ways, she is still trapped in the miasma of despair. The family’s home, once the locus of so many festive occasions, has gone quiet. While Mr. Wang and Ms. Zhang leave a traditional red envelope containing money on Peter’s bed every Chinese New Year, they now struggle to summon the energy to celebrate the holiday.
但在其他方面，她仍然被困在绝望中。这个家曾有过许多喜庆场合，但如今却没有了声息。两夫妇会在每个春节将装好钱的红包放在彼得的床上，如今连庆祝这个节日的劲头都很难提起来。
And in the rare instances when the family talks about Peter’s death, the couple often refers to it as the shiqing, or the “event.”
此外，偶尔谈到彼得的去世时，这对夫妇往往将其称为“那事”。
Mr. Wang said he had tried to suppress his grief with a return to familiar habits. He puts in long shifts at the family restaurant, and many days he drops off his middle son, Jason, 17, at Marjory Stoneman Douglas, where he is a senior.
王孔峰说他此前试图通过回归熟悉的习惯来压制悲痛。他长时间在家里开的餐厅工作，经常送现年17岁的二儿子杰森去马乔里·斯通曼·道格拉斯高中上学，杰森目前是12年级的学生。
He said he had thought about moving his family to China, where mass gun violence is almost nonexistent. But he and his family had already committed to building their lives in America.
他说他曾想过举家搬到几乎不存在大规模枪支暴力的中国，但他和家人已经全身心投入在美国打造自己的生活了。
“I just wish things were a little safer for our kids, that’s all,” he said.
“我只希望对我们的孩子来说能安全点，就这样而已，”他说。
Ms. Zhang still has moments of levity and joy, whether it’s cackling with friends at a crude joke or cradling her nephew’s newborn son.
张女士依然会有轻松愉快的时刻，无论是听到粗俗笑话和朋友一起哈哈大笑，还是轻轻抱着她外甥的新生宝宝。
But life in America eventually became all but unbearable. Last year, Ms. Zhang moved with her youngest son, Alex, 11, back to Fujian, seeking comfort in a place that was familiar yet free of the constant reminders of Peter’s death. She struggles with post-traumatic stress disorder, hypertension and insomnia, among other ailments. She would like to stay in China, where she can talk to doctors without a translator, until her health improves.
但美国的生活最终变得几乎难以承受。去年，张女士与11岁的小儿子亚历克斯搬回福建，在一个既熟悉又不会时时刻刻提醒他们彼得去世的地方寻求慰藉。她深受创伤后应激障碍、高血压和失眠等疾病之苦。她希望在身体好转前能留在中国，在这里她可以不需要翻译就能看医生。
Last fall, while Ms. Zhang was in Florida for a brief visit, she and Mr. Wang went to Peter’s grave. It was his 21st birthday. He should have been having his first legal drink and celebrating with a big cake, maybe with a girlfriend, Ms. Zhang thought.
去年秋天短暂前往佛罗里达州时，她和王孔峰去了彼得的墓地。那是他21岁生日，张女士想，他本来应该能合法喝上第一杯酒，用大蛋糕庆祝，或许还和女朋友一起。
彼得21岁生日当天，家人们在他的墓地。
Instead, Ms. Zhang and Mr. Wang were kneeling on the damp grass next to his grave. They carefully pulled out the weathered miniature American flags and replaced them with new ones. When they had finished sprucing up the plot, Ms. Zhang, Mr. Wang, Jason and several other relatives stood quietly around Peter’s grave for about half an hour.
可现在两人却跪在彼得墓边的潮湿草坪上。他们小心地拔出经过风吹雨打的小小美国国旗，换上了新的。扫完墓后，两人和杰森以及另外几名亲属沉默地站在彼得墓地周围，一站就是半小时。
As everyone left, Ms. Zhang and Mr. Wang lingered. A colorful “Happy Birthday!” balloon bobbed around in the misty air. Mr. Wang tapped the grave marker twice with the tip of his umbrella.
随着大家的离开，两夫妇依然留在原处。在雾气中，一个色彩鲜艳的“生日快乐”气球四处飘动。王孔峰用他的伞尖轻触了墓碑两下。
“Goodbye, Peter,” he said. “We’ll see you again soon.”
“再见，彼得，”他说。“我们很快会再见面的。”
That afternoon, the family gathered for a feast of barbecued lamb skewers, crab legs and freshly shucked oysters. Ms. Zhang glanced at the light rain still falling outside, unusual for November in Florida. It was a sign from Peter, she thought.
那个下午，一家人一起享用了羊肉串、蟹腿和新鲜的生蚝。张女士瞥了一眼外面淅淅沥沥的小雨，这在11月的佛罗里达州并不常见。她想，这是来自彼得的启示。
She and Mr. Wang knew that loneliness would engulf them again when the day was over. But for now, they were grateful to be with people who understood.
她和王孔峰知道，这一天过后，孤独会再次吞噬他们。但就目前而言，能和理解自己的人在一起，他们充满感激。
