My Dad and I, Rebuilt

Working on a home repair project with my father showed me I had more to learn about him than I thought

-  Colleen Oakley

GROWING UP, I understood one thing about my dad: He knew everything. This was our relationship, in sum: I asked him questions and he told me the answers. Is there really a man in the moon? How do sailboats work? What is the highest score anyone's ever gotten in Pac-Man?

In my teen years, he taught me things I'd need to know to survive in the real world. How to drive a stick shift. How to check your car tyre's pressure (though the gauge he bought me 20 years ago still sits untouched in my glove box). The correct knife to use to cut a cantaloupe.

When I moved out on my own, I called him at least once a week, usually when something broke in my apartment and I needed to know how to fix it: the toilet; the airconditioning; the wall, once, when I threw a shoe at a terrifying spider.

But then, eventually, I needed him less. I got married, and my husband had most of the knowledge I lacked about gutter cleaning and water heaters and nondestructive insect removal. For everything else, we had Google.