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But as we put the new bulkhead together piece by piece, my dad knowing exactly what went where, I looked at him.
但當(dāng)我們把新的隔板一塊一塊地組裝起來時，我爸爸知道什么裝在了哪里，我看著他。
“How do you know how to build a bulkhead?” The heavy mallet he was swinging paused in midair.
“你怎么知道如何建造艙壁？”他揮動著的大錘停在了半空中。
“I spent a summer in college building them on the Jersey Shore.” “You did?”
“我在大學(xué)里花了一個夏天的時間在澤西海岸建造它們。”“你做的？”
I thought I knew everything about my dad—all his random jobs.
我以為我了解我爸爸的一切——他所有的工作。
I knew about the apple orchard, the summer at the horseradish manufacturing plant that burned his hands raw,
我知道蘋果園，那個夏天在辣根制造廠灼痛了他的手，
and even the diner line-cook position, where he learned how to make the best omelet in the Western hemisphere.
甚至在排隊做飯的位置，他學(xué)會了如何做西半球最好的煎蛋卷。
But I never knew this. “Yep. Now come up here and let me teach you how to use this circular saw.”
但我從來不知道這些。“是的。現(xiàn)在上來，讓我教你如何使用這個圓鋸。”
As he explained the importance of not setting the blade too deep
他解釋了不要把刀片放得太深的重要性，
(information I quickly tucked away in the same place I store the information about how to use the tire gauge),
（我很快就把如何使用輪胎表的信息放在了同一個地方），
I realized that maybe it’s not that there’s nothing left to say.
我意識到也許并不是沒有什么可說的。
Maybe it’s just that I’ve spent my life asking him the wrong questions.
也許我這輩子都在問他一些錯誤的問題。
A few weeks later, after my family and I moved back into our renovated house, I called my parents.
幾周后，當(dāng)我和家人搬回我們翻修過的房子后，我給父母打了電話。
Dad answered. “Hi, sweets,” he said. “Here’s Mom.” “Wait, Dad,” I said.
爸爸回答說。“嗨，甜心，”他說。“這是媽媽。“等等，爸爸，”我說。
“How are you?” We ended up talking about the consulting gig he was working on,
“你好嗎？”最后我們聊到了他正在做的咨詢工作，
a new battery he’d bought for his sail-boat, a refi my husband and I were looking into to bundle our home-renovation loan.
他為他的帆船買了一個新電池，我丈夫和我正在考慮把我們的房屋裝修貸款打包。
Nothing life-changing, nothing earth-shattering.
沒有什么改變生活的事，沒有什么驚天動地的事。
To anyone else, it would sound like a normal conversation between a dad and his daughter.
對任何其他人來說，對其他人來說，這聽起來就像爸爸和女兒之間的正常對話。
But to me, it was novel. A new beginning. I spent the first part of my life needing to talk to my dad.
但對我來說，這很新奇。一個新的開始。我生命的前一段時間是需要和我父親說話。
Now I talk to him because I want to.
現(xiàn)在我跟他說話是因為我想這么做。
