Then, a school fact contradicted something he said. Impossible that he could be wrong, but there it was in the book. These accumulated over time, along with personal experiences, to buttress my own developing sense of values. And I could tell we had each taken our own, perfectly normal paths.

后來，在學校學到的一個事實否定了老爸說過的某些東西。他不可能會錯的，可書上卻是這樣寫的。諸如此類的事日積月累，加上我的個人閱歷，支持了我逐漸成形的價值觀。我可以這么說：我倆開始各走各的陽關道了。

I began to see, too, his blind spots, his prejudices[偏見] and his weaknesses. I never threw these up at him. He hadn't to me, and, anyway, he seemed to need protection. I stopped asking his advice; the experiences he drew from no longer seemed relevant to the decisions I had to make. 　　

與此同時，我還開始發現他對某些事的無知，他的偏見，他的弱點。我從未在他面前提起這些，他也從未在我面前說起，而且，不管怎么說，他看起來需要保護了。我不再向他征求意見；他的那些經驗也似乎同我要做出的決定不再相干。

He volunteered advice for a while. But then, in more recent years, politics and issues gave way to talk of empty errands and, always, to ailments.

老爸當了一段時間的“自愿顧問”，但后來，特別是近幾年里，他談話中的政治與國家大事讓位給了空洞的使命與疾病。

From his bed, he showed me the many sores and scars on his misshapen body and all the bottles for medicine. “ Sometimes,” he confided[傾訴], “ I would just like to lie down and go to sleep and not wake up.” 　　

躺在床上，他給我看他那被歲月扭曲了的軀體上的疤痕，以及他所有的藥瓶兒。他傾訴著：“有時我真想躺下睡一覺，永遠不再醒來。”