It happened on a mild day in March, in the quiet suburb in Virginia. My daughter, 2, was napping. My 4-year-old son was playing in the yard. I was packing us up to fly home to Chicago when I realized my son's headphones had broken. I told him I was running to the store and asked if he wanted to stay with Grandma. "No," he said, "I want to come with you."
三月份某个天气晴朗的日子里，事情发生在弗吉尼亚州某个安静的郊区。我2岁的女儿正在打盹，4岁的儿子正在院子里玩。我正在收拾行李，打算去芝加哥，然后突然想到儿子的耳机坏了。所以我告诉他我要去一趟超市，问他愿不愿意和奶奶呆在家。"不要，"他说道，"我想和你一起去。"
We got into my mother's minivan and drove through the subdivision where I'd grown up, where kids ride bikes and plenty of people don't bother to lock their doors. I pulled into a strip mall and parked. "I don't want to go in," he said. "Pleeeeease." He was tapping animated animals on a screen, dragging them from side to side.
我们坐上了母亲的小型货车，驱车从我长大的小区离开。孩子们骑着自行车，很多人甚至都懒得锁门。开到一个商业区之后，我停了车。"我不想进去，"儿子说道。"求求你了。"他正在屏幕上点击动物，把它从一边拖至另一边。
At home in Chicago, I would have said no. And if it had been hot or even warm out, I would have said no. But it was a cool, cloudy 40°F day, and I was not in Chicago. I was in a place where there were as many squirrels as people and no such thing as daytime parking lot car theft. This was where I'd grown up in the 1980s, waiting in my parents' station wagon, windows open, listening to music and daydreaming while my parents ran their boring errands.
在芝加哥的家中，我会拒绝他的请求。如果天热的话，我也会拒绝他。但在松鼠和人一样多的郊区，根本不会发生大白天停车场盗窃一事。而且20世纪80年代，我就是在这里长大的，当父母去商场买东西的时候，我就坐在他们的旅行车中等着（打开车窗、听着音乐、做做白日梦）。
Over four or five seconds, I noted how close the parking spot was to the front door and visualized how quickly I would be running into the store. And then I did something I had never done before. I opened the windows a few inches, child-locked the doors and double-clicked my keys to set the car alarm. Then I left him in the car for all of five minutes.
四五秒后，我注意到我们的停车点离商场大门很近，我跑进商场的速度应该会很快。所以我做了以前从未做过的事情。我打开了车窗（几英寸），把车门锁上，双击钥匙设置汽车防盗铃。之后我离开了，留他一个人呆在车内，呆了5分钟。
When I returned, he was still playing his game, smiling. In the two years that followed, I replayed this moment again and again: getting in the car, looking in the rearview mirror, pulling away.
我回来的时候，他还在笑着玩游戏。之后的两年，我脑海中一直重复着这个画面：上车、看后视镜、倒车离开。