“如果你能准备一些布料，”她说，“我很乐意代劳。”如此一来我算放了心，于是回家帮助罗斯做演出练习。
“光荣属于至高无上的上帝，和平、友善属于世间的人们，”罗斯胆怯地说，“妈妈，听起来还好吗？”
“非常好！现在试着声音再大点。”我坚信，只要罗斯对自己说的台词足够自信，她就能获得更多的归属感。
那个盛大的夜晚，我和特里安顿好坐下来开始等待。主啊，让这成为罗斯的特殊时刻吧！但是，演出却遇到了麻烦。
一名老师从后台出来，她扫视了一下观众接着径直走到我面前，“赖兹尼切克太太，”她低声说道，“我们找不到罗斯的演出服。”
罗斯的演出服！我们一直忙着排练，我忘了给老师提供布料！我们所有的努力……现在罗斯真的会觉得她不属于这里。“真是抱歉！”我告诉她。
“校长正翻箱倒柜呢，他会找到我们能用的东西，”她说，“耐心等一下，好好祈祷吧！”
“罗斯是个坚强的女孩，”特里说道，“而且她有一对爱她并和她共度难关的父母。”
孩子们排成单行走上舞台。我试图将注意力集中在演出上，但仍计算着时间——直到天使们和我的罗斯出现。我惊讶地用双手捂住了嘴。罗斯高高地站在前排中央，身着全场最漂亮的服装：一件波浪形的白色长袍，腰间束着闪闪发光的金缎腰带。
“光荣属于至高无上的上帝，和平、友善属于世间的人们！”我的女儿和其他的天使们一起欢呼，我能听见她的声音比其他所有人都响亮。这是我见过的最精彩的圣诞节表演！
“妈妈，我成功了！我是天使！”表演结束后，罗斯气喘吁吁地跑向我说，“他们找不到我的服装时我真的不想演了，但那时其他的天使说他们需要我！”
我紧紧地抱着她，“罗斯，我真为你感到骄傲。从现在起，你们所有的天使都应当团结友爱。”
不过我还是很纳闷：那件演出服是从哪儿来的？当罗斯和她的同学们一起庆祝的时候，她的老师把我拉向一旁：“校长当时有些手足无措，”她解释道，“接着他刚巧在衣橱顶上发现了衣服的一角。他伸手一拉，衣服就掉到了他的手里。配罗斯太完美了！”
我明白了，这件衣服原本就是为她准备的，只不过从上帝的天使那儿到了我的天使这儿。
The summer I was 14
１４岁的夏天
My father was a country doctor who raised cattle on our farm in southern Indiana. A white wooden fence around the property had to be scraped and painted every three years. That was to be my job the summer I was 14. If that wasn"t bad enough news, one June day my dad decided I should extend the fence.
We were sitting at the edge of the south pasture, my father took off his cap and wiped his forehead. Then he pointed to a stand of hemlocks 300 yards away.“From here to there—that"s where we want our fence,” he said.“Figure about 110 holes, three feet deep. Keep the digger"s blades sharp and you can probably dig eight or ten a day.”
In a tight voice I said I didn"t see how I could finish that with all the other stuff I had to do. Besides, I"d planned a little softball and fishing.“Why don"t we borrow a power auger?”I suggested.
“Power augers don"t learn anything from work. And we want our fence to teach us a thing or two.” he replied, slapping me on the back.
I flinched to show my resentment. I admired a lot about my dad, and I tried to remember those things when I felt mad at him. Once, when I"d been along on one of his house calls, I watched him tell a sick farmwoman she was going to be all right before he left or he wasn"t leaving. He held her hand and told her stories. He got her to laugh and then he got her out of bed. She said, “Why, Doc, I do feel better.”
I asked him later how he knew she would get better.“I don"t,” he said, “but if you keep their morale up, most patients will get things fixed up themselves.”
If I wanted to be by myself, I would retreat to a river birch by the stream that fed our pond. It forked at ground level, and I"d wedge my back up against one trunk and my feet against the other. Then I would look at the sky or read or pretend.
That summer I hadn"t had much time for my tree. One evening my father and I walked past it, he said, “I remember you scrunching into that tree when you were a little kid.”
“I don"t.”I said sullenly.
He looked at me sharply. “What"s got into you?” he said.
Amazingly, I heard myself say, “what the hell do you care?” Then I ran off to the barn. Sitting in the tack room, I tried not to cry.
My father opened the door and sat opposite me. Finally I met his gaze.
“Let"s see. You feel strange in your own body, like it doesn"t work the same way it always had. You think no one else is like you, and you think I"m too hard on you and don"t appreciate what you do around here. You even wonder how you got into a family as dull as ours.”
I was astonished that he knew my most treacherous night thoughts.
“The thing is, your body is changing,”he continued. “And that changes your entire self. You"ve got a lot more male hormones in your blood. And, son, there"s not a man in this world who could handle what that does to you when you"re fourteen.”
I didn"t know what to say. I knew I didn"t like whatever was happening to me. For months I"d felt out of touch with everything. I was irritable and restless and sad for no reason. And because I couldn"t talk about it, I began to feel really isolated.
“One of the things that"ll help you,” my dad said after a while, “is work, hard work.”
As soon as he said that, anger came suddenly. “Fine,”I said in the rudest voice I could manage. Then I stormed out.
When my father said work he meant work. I dug post holes every morning, slamming that digger into the ground until I had tough calluses on my hands.