The Ring in the Flour Tin

Two hours before Sunday's family lunch, Talia's grandmother realises her wedding ring is missing. It always sits in a small dish by the bathroom sink, every single night. The house fills with quiet panic. Drawers are opened. Coat pockets are checked twice.

周日家庭午餐前两个小时，塔莉娅的奶奶发现她的结婚戒指不见了。戒指每天晚上都放在浴室水槽边的一个小碟子里，从不例外。屋子里弥漫起一阵安静的慌乱。抽屉被一个个拉开。外套口袋被翻了两遍。

Talia's first thought goes straight to her cousin Ezra. He arrived from out of town the night before, and everyone jokes that he has a habit of borrowing things without asking. She doesn't say this out loud, but she watches him more closely than usual while he sets the table. She half expects to catch him looking guilty.

塔莉娅第一个念头就转向了表哥以斯拉。他前一天晚上刚从外地赶来，大家都开玩笑说他有不打招呼就借东西的习惯。她没有说出口，但他摆餐桌的时候，她盯他盯得比平时更紧。她半是期待地想抓到他露出心虚的神色。

By the time the guests start arriving, the ring still hasn't turned up. Talia's grandmother is trying, not very successfully, to pretend it doesn't matter. "It's probably somewhere obvious," she says, in the voice adults use when they don't quite believe their own words. Talia notices her hands are shaking slightly as she stirs the gravy.

等客人们陆续到来时，戒指仍然没有找到。塔莉娅的奶奶正努力假装这无关紧要，却不太成功。“多半就在某个显眼的地方，”她说，用的是大人们自己都不太相信自己的话时的那种语气。塔莉娅注意到，奶奶搅拌肉汁的时候，手微微发抖。

It's Talia who finally finds it, almost by accident, while helping measure flour for the biscuits her grandmother makes every week. Something small and hard clinks against the metal scoop at the bottom of the flour tin. She lifts it out and brushes off the white powder. She holds up the ring, hardly believing what she's looking at.

最后是塔莉娅找到的，几乎是无意中，当时她正帮忙量面粉，要做奶奶每周都做的那种小饼。面粉罐底部的金属勺子碰到了什么又小又硬的东西，叮的一声。她把它拿出来，拂去白色的粉末。她举起那枚戒指，几乎不敢相信自己看到的。

Her grandmother laughs so suddenly that she has to sit down. She explains that she always takes the ring off before baking, so the dough doesn't stick to it. She must have dropped it into the tin instead of the usual dish without noticing, distracted by the phone ringing at exactly the wrong moment.

奶奶忽然大笑起来，笑得不得不坐下。她解释说，每次烘焙前她总会把戒指摘下来，免得面团粘在上面。她一定是没留意，把戒指丢进了面粉罐，而不是平时的碟子里，因为电话偏偏在最不巧的时候响了起来。

Talia thinks about how close she came to saying something unfair to Ezra. He had done nothing wrong at all, except arrive on the same day as a very ordinary accident. If she had said anything to him earlier, the whole afternoon would have felt very different for both of them. When he walks past a few minutes later, she bumps his shoulder with hers. She doesn't explain why, just glad she never said anything out loud.

塔莉娅想到，自己差一点就对以斯拉说出不公平的话。他什么错也没有，只不过是在一场再普通不过的意外发生的同一天到了而已。如果她早些对他说了什么，这整个下午对他们两个人来说都会很不一样。几分钟后，他走过她身边，她用自己的肩膀轻轻撞了一下他的肩膀。她没有解释为什么，只是庆幸自己从没有大声说出口。