读者文摘:科技让他们重聚(6)

Mikalin Watson-Cheesman is proud of her first name.

米卡林·沃森·奇斯曼对自己的名字感到自豪，

It's short for Mika Linette, a combination of the two most important parts of her identity:

它是米卡·林诺特的缩写，她的身份中两个最重要的部分的结合：

Mika, the name she chose for herself when she became an adult,

米卡，是她成年后给自己起的名字，

and Linette, the name her birth parents gave her—the name she didn't know until she was 46.

林诺特是她的生父母给她的名字-这个名字她46岁时才知道。

Mikalin still remembers the exact moment she was separated from her mother, on September 24, 1975.

米卡林仍然清楚地记得自己和母亲分离的时刻，那是1975年9月24日。

Then just four years old, she and her mother were walking through Penn Station in New York City.

那时她只有四岁，她和母亲走在纽约市的宾州车站，

Mikalin recalls that her mother seemed nervous, frequently stopping in her tracks to rummage¹ through her purse.

米卡林记得自己的母亲似乎很紧张，经常停下来翻着自己的钱包。

Mikalin spotted² a candy store and asked whether she could go in. She thought her mother said yes, so she started browsing³.

米卡林看到一个糖果店，问母亲她能不能进去。她以为母亲说了可以，所以她就进店去逛。

"The guy behind the counter asked if I wanted candy," she says. "I said, 'I'll go ask my mom,' and she was gone."

“柜台后面的人问我要不要糖果，”她说。“我说，‘我去问问我妈妈，’她已经不见了。”

A police officer found the girl wandering around the train station alone.

一位警官发现小女孩自己在车站溜达。

When he asked whether she knew which direction her mother went, she shrugged⁴. She wouldn't speak to anyone.

当他问女孩是否知道她母亲往哪个方向走时，她耸了耸肩。她不和任何人说话。

Before long, she was placed in a Catholic orphanage⁵. The nuns⁶ running it gave her a name—Missy—because the girl still wouldn't talk.

不久，她就被送到一家天主教孤儿院。经营孤儿院的修女给她起了个名字——米茜——因为那个女孩还是不肯说话。

The case hit newsstands when the New York Post ran an article on her, asking "Where is Missy's mother?" No one answered.

《纽约邮报》发了一篇关于询问她的母亲是谁的文章后，这个案子引起了报摊热议，没人知道答案。

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Two years later, when she was six, she was adopted. Her new family named her Michelle.

两年后，六岁的她被收养了。她家人给她取名叫米歇尔。

Once she finished high school, she moved out, changed her name to Mika, and traveled the country.

高中毕业后，她搬了出去，改名为米卡，去国家旅行。

She married and divorced twice and raised five kids, all the while trying to find her birth family.

她离了两次婚，养了五个孩子，同时也在努力寻找她的出生家庭。

In 2001, desperate for any information, she posted on a genealogy⁷ website that she had been left at Penn Station and was searching for her birth mother.

2001年，她急切地想要得到一切信息，于是她在一个族谱网站上发帖称，自己被留在了宾夕法尼亚车站，正在寻找生母。

Lynn-Marie Carty, a Florida-based private investigator⁸ and founder⁹ of reunitepeople.com, saw the message and sent Mika her phone number.

林恩-玛丽·卡蒂是佛罗里达州的一名私家侦探，也是reunitepeople.com网站的创始人。她看到了消息给米卡发了她的电话号码。

"I called her up and she said, 'I wanna help you. Don't worry about sending me any money or anything.

“我给她打电话，她说，我想帮助你。我不要你的钱或任何东西。

I'm just going to help you,'" Mikalin says. Carty worked the case on and off for 16 years without a breakthrough.

我就是单纯地想帮助你，米卡林说。卡蒂断断续续地跟了这个案子16年，没有一点突破。

In December 2017, she sent Mika a DNA¹⁰ test as a Christmas present.

2017年12月，她送了米卡一个DNA测验，作为圣诞礼物。

After running the results through several databases, Carty found that Mika was a match with a woman named Kelly Warren, who appeared to be Mika's first cousin.

卡蒂在几个数据库中查找结果后发现，米卡与一位名叫凯利·沃伦的女子配对，后者似乎是米卡的表妹。

Carty called Kelly, who was initially¹¹ skeptical¹² of the whole story but eventually agreed to help.

卡蒂给凯利打了电话，凯利起初对整个故事持怀疑态度，但最终还是同意帮忙。

1 rummage   

v./n.翻寻，仔细检查

参考例句：

• He had a good rummage inside the sofa.他把沙发内部彻底搜寻了一翻。
• The old lady began to rummage in her pocket for her spectacles.老太太开始在口袋里摸索，找她的眼镜。

2 spotted   

adj.有斑点的，斑纹的，弄污了的

参考例句：

• The milkman selected the spotted cows,from among a herd of two hundred.牛奶商从一群200头牛中选出有斑点的牛。
• Sam's shop stocks short spotted socks.山姆的商店屯积了有斑点的短袜。

3 browsing   

v.吃草( browse的现在分词 )；随意翻阅；（在商店里）随便看看；（在计算机上）浏览信息

参考例句：

• He sits browsing over[through] a book. 他坐着翻阅书籍。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Cattle is browsing in the field. 牛正在田里吃草。 来自《简明英汉词典》

4 shrugged   

vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式）

参考例句：

• Sam shrugged and said nothing. 萨姆耸耸肩膀，什么也没说。
• She shrugged, feigning nonchalance. 她耸耸肩，装出一副无所谓的样子。 来自《简明英汉词典》

5 orphanage   

n.孤儿院

参考例句：

• They dispensed new clothes to the children in the orphanage.他们把新衣服发给孤儿院的小孩们。
• They gave the proceeds of the sale to the orphanage.他们把销售的收入给了这家孤儿院。

6 nuns   

n.（通常指基督教的）修女， （佛教的）尼姑( nun的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Ah Q had always had the greatest contempt for such people as little nuns. 小尼姑之流是阿Q本来视如草芥的。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• Nuns are under vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. 修女须立誓保持清贫、贞洁、顺从。 来自辞典例句

7 genealogy   

n.家系，宗谱

参考例句：

• He had sat and repeated his family's genealogy to her,twenty minutes of nonstop names.他坐下又给她细数了一遍他家族的家谱，20分钟内说出了一连串的名字。
• He was proficient in all questions of genealogy.他非常精通所有家谱的问题。

8 investigator   

n.研究者，调查者，审查者

参考例句：

• He was a special investigator for the FBI.他是联邦调查局的特别调查员。
• The investigator was able to deduce the crime and find the criminal.调查者能够推出犯罪过程并锁定罪犯。

9 Founder   

n.创始者，缔造者

参考例句：

• He was extolled as the founder of their Florentine school.他被称颂为佛罗伦萨画派的鼻祖。
• According to the old tradition,Romulus was the founder of Rome.按照古老的传说，罗穆卢斯是古罗马的建国者。

10 DNA   

(缩)deoxyribonucleic acid 脱氧核糖核酸

参考例句：

• DNA is stored in the nucleus of a cell.脱氧核糖核酸储存于细胞的细胞核里。
• Gene mutations are alterations in the DNA code.基因突变是指DNA密码的改变。

11 initially   

adv.最初，开始

参考例句：

• The ban was initially opposed by the US.这一禁令首先遭到美国的反对。
• Feathers initially developed from insect scales.羽毛最初由昆虫的翅瓣演化而来。

12 skeptical   

adj.怀疑的，多疑的

参考例句：

• Others here are more skeptical about the chances for justice being done.这里的其他人更为怀疑正义能否得到伸张。
• Her look was skeptical and resigned.她的表情是将信将疑而又无可奈何。