小时候我相信，即使月亮破了，爸爸都能补。长大后我渐渐觉得，爸爸也不那么值得信任。直到某一天为情所伤，我才发现爸爸的几句话就能修补“我”的心。

By Janice M. Westerling

吴凡 选注

“The moon is broken, but Daddy can fix it,” I said at the age of 3, pointing to the rind of a waning moon.[1] If our septic tank backed up or the brutal valley sun curled the windowsill paint,[2] my father always solved the problem. My mother loved repeating my innocent quote, long after I stopped believing it was true.

As a child I often waited for my dad to return from the vineyards, and followed him to his workshop filled with saws, welders’ masks, and nails sorted by size.[3] When I became too old to share a bedroom with my brother, he pounded wooden stakes into the ground to measure the new foundation.[4] With the enthusiasm and skill of a second-grader, I set out to help him build the addition[5].

I smashed my fingers with a hammer, and my father showed me how to pinch the nail with my thumb and forefinger, gently tapping its head until it stood upright by itself.[6]

That summer I got a gold locket[7] for my birthday and cut out a heart-shaped portrait of my dad to wear inside.

By the time I entered junior high, I viewed my father with a more critical eye. When he read aloud from the Bible during family devotions each evening, I noticed his delivery was halting and he sometimes stumbled over words.[8] I winced if he said, “ain’t” in front of my friends.[9]

After I went away to college, I visited my parents monthly at first, then less often. I was anxious to supplement[10] my dad’s 10th-grade education with the new ideas I was trying on. When he balked at my hypothetical question about marrying a black man, I bristled at his prejudice.[11] Over the months, my parents started to seem like distant relatives that I recognized, but didn’t know very well.

The next two years, I spun further out of my father’s orbit.[12] Shedding my gingham skirts, I bought bell-bottoms from the Army-Navy store and wore them with tie-dyed halter tops.[13] I began drinking coffee at the student union with a boy who was a published poet[14]. We shared glances in class and laughed at each other’s jokes. I couldn’t wait to be with him, even though I knew he had a wife.

When I visited home, I felt jittery[15] hiding my guilty romance from my father and mother and often invented excuses so I could rush back to school before the weekend was over. When my heart started pounding out of my chest, I knew I had to come clean with my parents.[16]

“I have something to tell you,” I said, the back of my throat tightening with tears. “I’m in love with someone... and he’s married,” I choked out[17].

The room was so still I could hear mockingbirds quarreling in the fruitless mulberry trees.[18] I looked at my dad, his knuckles swollen and cracked from farm work and his fingernails tipped with black crescents of motor oil.[19] He retreated[20] silently to his workshop, and I didn’t follow him.

A week later, I opened my apartment mailbox and recognized my father’s handwriting on an envelope. I couldn’t remember ever receiving a letter from him. Each December, my mother would have to prod him weeks in advance to begin the Christmas message to his Army buddies, until he finally sat down with a notepad, as glum as a student in detention.[21]

My hands started shaking as I loosened the flap[22].

“Dear Jan, I’m not too good with words.” My dad explained he wanted me to be happy and prayed that God would give me wisdom and guidance.

“I only know that falling in love should be the happiest time of your life. You seemed so sad.”

I pictured my father struggling to patch up my broken heart with a pen, and his closing words slipped like minnows through my tears.[23]

“So I will be hearing from you soon. Lots of love. Daddy.”

Vocabulary

1. rind: 外层，表层；waning moon: 【天】亏月。

2. 无论是我们的化粪池堵了，还是毒辣的山谷阳光将窗沿上的油漆晒裂了，卷起了皮。

3. vineyard: 葡萄园；saw: 锯子；welder: 焊接工；sort by size: 按大小整理好。

4. 他将一个个木桩用力锤入地面，用来给新地基定界。

5. addition: （建筑物等的）扩建部分。

6. smash: 猛力砸；pinch: 捏，夹；forefinger: 食指；upright: 挺直着，竖立着。

7. locket: 纪念品盒（用以珍藏亲人头发或小照片等的金或银制小盒子，通常悬在项链上）。

8. family devotion: 家庭祷告，基督徒家庭每天都会有固定的一段时间用于学习或朗诵《圣经》、为彼此祈祷等，下文的delivery指读《圣经》；halting: 犹豫的，吞吞吐吐的；stumble: 结结巴巴地说话。

9. wince: 皱眉蹙眼；ain’t: 如今使用该词被认为是缺少教育的标志。

10. supplement: 增补，补充。

11. balk: 畏缩，回避；hypothetical: 假设的；bristle: 被激怒；prejudice: 偏见，歧视。

12. spin: 旋转；orbit: 轨道。

13. 我脱掉了方格裙，从海陆军店买来喇叭裤，搭配着三角扎染背心一起穿。

14. published poet: 有著作出版（或发表）的诗人。

15. jittery: 紧张不安的，神经过敏的。

16. pound:（心等）剧跳；come clean: 坦白承认。

17. choke out: 哽咽地说出某事。

18. mockingbird: 【鸟】嘲鸫（善鸣叫，并能模仿别种鸟的叫声，故名）；mulberry: 桑树。

19. 我看着爸爸，因为做农活，他的指关节又肿又裂，他的指甲缝里是一圈黑黑的机油。crescent: 新月形（物），此处形容指甲前缘。

20. retreat: 退避，躲避。

21. prod: 敦促，推动；buddy: 伙伴；notepad: 笔记本；glum: 闷闷不乐的；detention: （处罚学生的）课后留校。

22. loosen the flap: 拆开信封盖。

23. picture: 想象；patch up: 修补；slip: 滑行，轻快地移动；minnow: 小鱼。

（来源：英语学习杂志）