Tenzin had been accepted to his first-choice university in early spring. It was a program in marine biology on the opposite coast, nearly two thousand miles from home. For months, it had felt like the only thing that mattered.
丹增在初春就被第一志愿的大学录取了。那是一个海洋生物学项目，在另一侧海岸，距离家将近两千英里。几个月来，这似乎是唯一重要的事。
Then, in June, his grandfather's heart condition worsened, and hospital visits became more frequent than anyone in the family wanted to admit out loud. His grandfather had taught him to fish, to whittle, and to sit quietly without needing to fill the silence with words.
然后，六月里，他外公的心脏病加重了，去医院的次数多得超出了家里任何人愿意大声承认的程度。外公教他钓鱼，教他削木头，教他安安静静地坐着，不必非要用话语去填满沉默。
His parents never asked him to stay. If anything, they insisted, almost too often, that he should go and not think twice about it. Despite their reassurances, Tenzin couldn't stop doing the math: four years away meant missing whatever time his grandfather had left.
父母从来没有要他留下。如果说有什么的话，他们几乎是过于频繁地坚持，说他应该去，不必多想。尽管他们这样宽慰，丹增还是忍不住算着这笔账：离开四年，就意味着错过外公剩下的所有时光。
His friend Nkechi, who had left for university the year before, called him most weekends. She had told him more than once that regret cut both ways, and that staying could be its own kind of loss.
他的朋友恩凯奇前一年已经去上大学了，大多数周末都给他打电话。她不止一次告诉他，遗憾是双向的，留下来也可能是另一种失去。
"You'll regret staying more than you'll regret going," she told him bluntly one Sunday. "I know that's not what you want to hear."
“留下来你会比离开更后悔，”一个星期天，她直截了当地对他说，“我知道你不想听这话。”
"You didn't have a grandfather in the hospital when you left," Tenzin said.
“你走的时候，又没有外公躺在医院里，”丹增说。
"No," Nkechi admitted, "but I've watched two friends defer their whole lives for someone else's timeline. Neither of them got that time back afterward."
“没有，”恩凯奇承认，“但我看过两个朋友，为了别人的时间表把自己的整个人生都推迟了。后来他们谁也没把那段时间追回来。”
Tenzin spent the last week of July sitting with his grandfather on the porch most evenings, saying very little, the way they always had. His grandfather, who had been listening to the family's careful half-conversations for weeks, finally brought it up himself.
七月的最后一个星期，丹增大多数傍晚都和外公坐在门廊上，话很少，就像他们一向那样。外公这几个星期一直听着家里人小心翼翼的半截对话，终于自己提起了这件事。
"If you stayed for me, I would spend every day feeling guilty about it," his grandfather said. "Go. Call on Sundays. That's the deal."
“要是你为了我留下，我每天都会愧疚，”外公说，“去吧。每个星期天打电话。就这么说定了。”
Tenzin should have asked him sooner what he actually wanted, instead of quietly guessing on his behalf for weeks. He left for orientation three weeks later, his acceptance letter finally taken down from the refrigerator and packed carefully between two books. On the drive to the airport, he cried the whole way, not from regret, but from a gratitude he couldn't yet name.
丹增本该早点问问他到底想要什么，而不是这么多个星期，一直悄悄替他猜测。三个星期后，他动身去参加新生入学指导，那封录取通知书终于从冰箱上取了下来，小心地夹在两本书之间。去机场的路上，他一路都在哭，不是出于后悔，而是出于一种他还说不出名字的感激。
