The Heart Has Its Reasons

我們的潛水艇姊妹之一，我的高中同班死黨，2055，日前給我寄來了這麽一篇華爾街日報上的文章——The Heart Has Its Reasons（想不到WSJ也有這種浪漫的文章！）

新聞事件是兩年前的情人節發生，但其實是卻是女主人翁，Toby Phalen Young的半生故事。

我們兩個都覺得此事很不可思議。

在貼文的當中，我想起倚天屠龍記裏的紀曉芙，給她愛女的名字：不悔，楊不悔。女人，是否太傻了？

（2056）
（以下譯文出自小A雜談博客，兒女心事總如雲，作者是朱涵華）
 
46年來，Toby Phalen Young一直是行爲端莊的楷模。

20歲便嫁給高中情人的Young女士，是人們眼裏的好母親、職業商人和慈善家。她收留流浪犬，到監獄做義工。她甚至從未吃過交通罰單。她的兄弟姐妹們都叫她“乖乖女”。

兩年前的情人節前夜，Young女士利用其在蘭辛監獄義工的身份，協助27歲的殺人犯John Manard潛逃。John Manard視48歲的Young爲其一生中至愛。爲了逃亡，她從退休金中提取了42000美元，買了輛車，並帶上了嫁妝。直到她的老公發現家裏兩把槍丟了，這對亡命鴛鴦才東窗事發，成爲美國頭號通緝情侶。

逃亡事件導致了一場新聞工作者的遊行，他們越過堪薩斯州河流來到這個藍領小鎮。但他們也許永遠無法洞悉這位生于斯、長于斯的社區棟樑所做的狂野舉措。

Young的朋友和熱愛她的人們一直堅信事出有因。當時Young的父親生命垂危，她本人也剛從癌症中恢複過來，魔咒在脆弱的時候俘虜了她。直到聯邦當局在田納西德一家蜜月小木屋找到這對逃亡者。

“中年危機的非常時期，她墜入了道德敗壞的大騙子設計的陷阱，”自打1950年代就跟Young家庭認識的州立法委員Michael Peterson說道。她的律師Michael Harris補充說：“Toby沒有在Appalachia刑場被槍決算是幸運的了。”

然而，兩年前Young被逮捕後的首次公開聲明中，她堅稱Manard沒有害她，永遠不會。“誰都希望我恨他，但我不會，”局促地坐在隔著監獄玻璃的另一頭，她把電話聽筒靠著耳邊，悠悠說道。

2006年她接受重罪指控，但聯邦法庭對她犯罪動機語焉不詳，她也從未對媒體提及—--她認爲無人能懂的理由。她引用最近在監獄裏讀到的法國哲學家Pascal書中的一段話：“兒女心事總如雲，悠悠渺渺憑誰述？”

.....

其間，在堪薩斯州的某個監獄，Manard先生表露了他們的愛情。“我是如此想她，用整個森林做紙，也寫不完我的思念。”他在最近給華爾街日報的信裏寫道。

重罪的代價是她的家庭、婚姻、財産和自由。如果她能將心中欎結與他人傾訴，而不是跟一個渴慕她的囚犯流露，這一切原本不該發生。可惜，她活在家族教義裏，她說：“Phalen家族默默承受，從不抱怨。”
.........

Young對失去的生活並不惋惜，她堅持入獄的恥辱和失去自由對她而言是有益的。過去瞧不起心理治療的她現在對監獄心理醫生贊賞有加。這位醫生一開始負責防範她自殺，現在則開始治療她的抑症。

Young拒絕接受人們把她看作一個被自私囚犯洗腦的受害者。她說她相信John Manard是愛著她的，他越獄只是爲了與她長相守。而已改過自新的他本該獲得自由，法律不能給他，那麽Young說她會給他自由。

她最大的遺憾是延長的刑期會讓Manard在牢裏度過余生。念此神傷，Young黯然說道：“我想，也許沒有遇到我，他會過得更好些。”

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The Heart Has Its Reasons
By KEVIN HELLIKER
February 9, 2008

For 46 years, Toby Phalen Young was a model of propriety.

Married to her high-school sweetheart since the age of 20, Ms. Young was a respected mother, business professional and philanthropist. She found homes for stray dogs and did volunteer work at a prison. She never even got a traffic ticket. Her siblings called her "goody two shoes."

Almost exactly two years ago, however, on the eve of Valentine's Day, Ms. Young used her volunteer status at Lansing Correctional Facility to smuggle out a convicted murderer. At age 27, John Manard had convinced the 48-year-old Ms. Young of his undying love for her. Before running off with him, she withdrew $42,000 from her retirement plan, purchased a getaway vehicle and packed it with her belongings. Her husband found a pair of pistols missing from their home, a discovery that turned the fugitive lovers into America's most-wanted couple.

The escape brought a parade of journalists into this blue-collar town across the river from glittering Kansas City, Mo. But nobody here could or would offer insight into the sudden wild streak of a community pillar who lived down the street from her parents in the only town she'd ever called home.

Even after federal authorities located the fugitives in a honeymoon cabin in Tennessee, Ms. Young's friends and loved ones reserved judgment. Many were convinced she had fallen under the spell of a manipulator at a vulnerable time, when her father was dying and Ms. Young herself was recovering from cancer.

"In the middle of a mid-life crisis, she got caught in the trap of a no-good rotten con artist," says Michael Peterson, a state legislator here who has known Ms. Young's family, the Phalens, since the 1950s. Adds her attorney, Michael Harris: "Toby is lucky not to be lying in a ditch in Appalachia with a bullet in her head."

Yet in Ms. Young's account, the first she has offered publicly since her arrest two years ago, Mr. Manard didn't wrong her and never would have. "Everybody wants me to hate him, but I don't," she says, visibly embarrassed to be sitting on the inmate side of plexiglass, a telephone pressed to her ear.

Her guilty pleas to felony charges in state court in 2006 and federal court last year offered no insight into the motivation behind her crimes, and she never provided any to the media -- in part, she says, for fear no one would understand. She cites a quote, from French philosopher Pascal, that she recently came across in prison, where she reads a book a day: "The heart has its reasons that reason knows nothing of."

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In a prison cell elsewhere in Kansas, meanwhile, Mr. Manard professes his love for her. "I miss her so much, I'd have to wipe out an entire rainforest to put it on paper," he said in a recent letter to The Wall Street Journal.

The felonies that cost Ms. Young her home, marriage, financial security and freedom might never have occurred if she had shared her unhappiness with someone other than an inmate seeking to woo her. But she had lived her life according to a family credo, she says: "Phalens don't complain. Phalens suck it up."

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She doesn't miss the life she lost, she says, asserting that the humiliation and deprivations of prison have been beneficial. Long dismissive of psychotherapy, she now praises the prison therapists who, initially placing her on suicide watch, began treating her for depression.

She refuses to endorse the theory that she is the brainwashed victim of a self-serving convict. She says she believes John Manard loved her, that he escaped to be with her, that he is a reformed man worthy of freedom. When legally able to make contact with him, she says she will do so.

Her deepest regret is that his lengthened sentence may keep him behind bars for life. Her voice breaking, she says, "I wonder if he'd be better off if he'd never met me."