【时间旅行者的妻子】93

“What’s that?”

　“Look it up. It was built like a tank. It had fins¹. My parents loved it— it had a lot of history for them.

　“So we got in the car. I sat in the front passenger seat, we both wore our seatbelts. And we drove. The weather was absolutely awful. It was hard to see, and the defrost in that car wasn’t the greatest. We went through this maze² of residential³ streets, and then we got on the expressway. It was after rush hour, but traffic was a mess because of the weather and the holiday So we were moving maybe fifteen, twenty miles an hour. My mother stayed in the right-hand lane, probably because she didn’t want to change lanes without being able to see very well and because we weren’t going to be on the expressway very long before we exited for the airport.

　“We were behind a truck, well behind it, giving it plenty of room up there. As we passed an entrance a small car, a red Corvette, actually, got on behind us. The Corvette, which was being driven by a dentist who was only slightly inebriated⁴, at 10:30 a.m., got on just a bit too quickly, and was unable to slow down soon enough because of the ice on the road, and hit our car. And in ordinary weather conditions, the Corvette would have been mangled⁵ and the indestructible Ford⁶ Fairlane would have had a bent⁷ fender and it wouldn’t have been that big of a deal.

　“But the weather was bad, the roads were slick, so the shove from the Corvette sent our car accelerating forward just as traffic slowed down. The truck ahead of us was barely moving. My mother was pumping the brakes but nothing was happening.

　“We hit the truck practically in slow motion, or so it seemed to me. In actuality we were going about forty. The truck was an open pickup⁸ truck full of scrap⁹ metal. When we hit it, a large sheet of steel flew off the back of the truck, came through our windshield, and decapitated my mother.”

　Clare has her eyes closed. “No.”

　“It’s true.”

　“But you were right there—you were too short!”

　“No, that wasn’t it, the steel embedded¹⁰ in my seat right where my forehead should have been.

1 fins   

[医]散热片；鱼鳍；飞边；鸭掌

参考例句：

• The level of TNF-α positively correlated with BMI,FPG,HbA1C,TG,FINS and IRI,but not with SBP and DBP. TNF-α水平与BMI、FPG、HbA1C、TG、FINS和IRI呈显著正相关，与SBP、DBP无相关。 来自互联网
• Fins are a feature specific to fish. 鱼鳍是鱼类特有的特征。 来自辞典例句

2 maze   

n.迷宫，八阵图，混乱，迷惑

参考例句：

• He found his way through the complex maze of corridors.他穿过了迷宮一样的走廊。
• She was lost in the maze for several hours.一连几小时，她的头脑处于一片糊涂状态。

3 residential   

adj.提供住宿的；居住的；住宅的

参考例句：

• The mayor inspected the residential section of the city.市长视察了该市的住宅区。
• The residential blocks were integrated with the rest of the college.住宿区与学院其他部分结合在了一起。

4 inebriated   

adj.酒醉的

参考例句：

• He was inebriated by his phenomenal success. 他陶醉于他显赫的成功。 来自互联网
• Drunken driver(a driver who is inebriated). 喝醉了的司机（醉酒的司机） 来自互联网

5 mangled   

vt.乱砍（mangle的过去式与过去分词形式）

参考例句：

• His hand was mangled in the machine. 他的手卷到机器里轧烂了。
• He was off work because he'd mangled his hand in a machine. 他没上班，因为他的手给机器严重压伤了。 来自《简明英汉词典》

6 Ford   

n.浅滩，水浅可涉处；v.涉水，涉过

参考例句：

• They were guarding the bridge,so we forded the river.他们驻守在那座桥上，所以我们只能涉水过河。
• If you decide to ford a stream,be extremely careful.如果已决定要涉过小溪，必须极度小心。

7 bent   

n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的

参考例句：

• He was fully bent upon the project.他一心扑在这项计划上。
• We bent over backward to help them.我们尽了最大努力帮助他们。

8 pickup   

n.拾起，获得

参考例句：

• I would love to trade this car for a pickup truck.我愿意用这辆汽车换一辆小型轻便卡车。||The luck guy is a choice pickup for the girls.那位幸运的男孩是女孩子们想勾搭上的人。

9 scrap   

n.碎片；废料；v.废弃，报废

参考例句：

• A man comes round regularly collecting scrap.有个男人定时来收废品。
• Sell that car for scrap.把那辆汽车当残品卖了吧。

10 embedded   

a.扎牢的

参考例句：

• an operation to remove glass that was embedded in his leg 取出扎入他腿部玻璃的手术
• He has embedded his name in the minds of millions of people. 他的名字铭刻在数百万人民心中。