• Poppy
• Becky Shirley (bio)

I found out Poppy Smith was sleeping with my father back in 1956, when I was thirteen, and today I learned she hanged herself on her bathroom doorknob with her own nylon stockings. It's been nearly six years since I saw her last, but the news prickled at me, something in between shock and annoyance.

I was still at Bryn Mawr packing to come home for Christmas when I found out. My roommates and I had saved our newspapers all week to pack breakable things, and I was using some to wrap my mother's gift. That's when I saw it, in smudgy ink: Poppy's name and age and cause of death, and a quote from a policeman who said how unusual it all was, and how they only found her after a neighbor's dog wouldn't stop barking at the wall, disturbed by the scent of dead next door.

I didn't say anything to my roommates about it. There's a difference, after all, between wanting someone to talk to and actually talking to them. Besides, they were barely speaking to me, only acknowledging me when it was unavoidable. It wasn't worth it to break our new little routine for Poppy. The pair of them stood by [End Page 107] their beds at the opposite end of the room, silently filling their suitcases and refusing to look at me. I shoved the section of newspaper underneath my pillow and waited until they left for dinner to rip out the column, making careful, tiny tears around the corners. I folded the paper twice and slipped it into the pocket of my coat, still hanging on the rack. Later, on the train ride to New York, I kept reaching inside to touch it. Pure compulsion, like reaching for a rosary. By the time we pulled into Grand Central, the paper had gone soft and my fingers tasted of ink. But I didn't take it out to read again. I didn't have to—the story repeated itself in my mind on its own: the policeman's exact phrasing, how he and another officer had to shoulder open her bathroom door. I could imagine Poppy's lithe but heavy body, lying limp under the doorknob, blocking the men from coming inside. But I couldn't picture what had happened before, could not decide whether Poppy had been methodical or if she had just followed through on a moment's whim with what she had on hand. The newspapers said nothing about that. They made it sound like something had been done to her—that even as she stretched the stockings and tied the knots, Poppy couldn't possibly have known what she was doing.

The story never mentioned my father. He must have been careful enough to keep everything in her name—her apartment lease and all that. Or maybe Poppy had been the one who asked to have it in her name, I wouldn't know. I didn't even know where she lived until the newspapers reported it. My father had tucked her away somewhere on Waverly Place, far away from my mother on the Upper West Side, but close enough to his office across from the Flatiron Building. I had to hand it to him: each world could be kept spotless and separate, and he existed in both with an ease I could never possess in one. He never had to stuff dirty underwear in his coat pocket, never had to scramble for socks in the morning. [End Page 108] He probably kept different pairs of pajamas in both apartments. At least until Poppy had to go and die on all of us.

I've only been home for a couple of hours now, but I already feel embarrassed to see my pragmatic, unfussy father like this. He leaves for the bathroom abruptly, eyes red-rimmed and unfocused; the little trash bin in there is filled with snot-soaked tissues. Poppy had already been dead for a couple of days by the time they found her, but who knows how long my father had noticed her absence before...

• 罂粟
• 贝基·雪莉（生物）

我发现罂粟·史密斯（Poppy Smith）早在1956年（十三岁）就和父亲一起睡觉，今天，我得知她用自己的尼龙丝袜将自己吊在浴室的门把手上。自从我上次见到她已经过去了将近6年，但是这个消息刺痛了我，介于震惊和烦恼之间。

当我发现时，我仍在Bryn Mawr打包回家过圣诞节。我和我的室友整个星期都保存着报纸，用来包装易碎的东西，而且我还用它们来包装妈妈的礼物。那是我看到的时候，用肮脏的墨水：罂粟的名字，年龄和死亡原因，还有一位警察的话说那是多么的不寻常，他们是如何在邻居的狗不停地吠叫之后才找到她的。墙，被隔壁死人的气味所打扰。

我没有对我的室友说任何话。毕竟，要与某人交谈和实际与他们交谈之间是有区别的。此外，他们几乎没有对我说话，只是在不可避免的时候才承认我。打破我们为Poppy设计的新例程并不值得。他们俩站在[End Page 107]他们在房间另一端的床，无声地装满了他们的手提箱，拒绝看着我。我把报纸的那部分推到枕头底下，等到他们离开吃饭去撕掉那根柱子，在角落里小心翼翼地细细地流着些眼泪。我将纸折叠两次，然后滑入外套的口袋，仍然挂在架子上。后来，在去纽约的火车上，我一直伸手去摸摸它。纯粹的强迫，就像去念珠。等到我们驶入大中央车站时，纸张变软了，我的手指尝到了墨水的味道。但是我没有把它拿出来再读一遍。我没有必要-这个故事在我的脑海中反复出现：警察的确切用语，他和另一名警官如何肩负打开浴室的门。我可以想象罂粟的轻柔但沉重的身体，躺在门把手下li行，阻止了这些人进入。但是我无法想象以前发生的事情，无法决定Poppy是否有条不紊，还是她只是随心所欲地跟上了她所掌握的一切。报纸对此一无所获。他们听起来好像已经做了一些事情对她，甚至为她伸出丝袜，绑结，罂粟不可能都知道她在做什么。

这个故事从来没有提到我父亲。他一定已经足够小心地将一切都保留在她的名下-她的公寓租约和所有这些。也许Poppy曾经是要求使用她的名字的人，我不知道。直到报纸报道，我什至不知道她住在哪里。我父亲把她藏在韦弗利广场（Waverly Place）的某个地方，离我的母亲在上西城很远，但离他在Flatiron大楼对面的办公室足够近。我不得不把它交给他：每个世界都可以保持一尘不染，彼此分开，而他在这两个世界中的存在都是我无法拥有的。他不必在大衣口袋里塞满脏内衣，也不必在早上争抢袜子。[完第108页]他可能在两间公寓里都穿着不同的睡衣。至少直到罂粟不得不离开死在我们所有人身上。

我现在只在家呆了几个小时，但是看到我这样务实，毫不客气的父亲，我已经感到很尴尬。他突然离开去洗手间，眼睛红红的，不专心。那里的小垃圾桶里塞满了浸泡过鼻涕的纸巾。罂粟到他们发现时已经死了几天，但谁知道我父亲在多久之前才注意到她不在……