The First New Car of Her Life
“He bought every car we ever owned used,” she said. “Forty-four years. Not one new one. He always said a new car lost a third of its value the minute you drove it home, and he wasn’t going to hand that to a dealer.”
I knew that. Everyone who knew Dad knew that. Dale Duffy could tell you the blue book on a 2008 Impala off the top of his head, and he’d drive two counties over to save three hundred dollars.
“I always wanted one,” Mom said. “Just once. To be the first person who ever sat in it.” She laughed at herself and shook her head. “Isn’t that silly. Sixty-eight years old.”
“It isn’t silly, Mom.”
“It’s a little silly,” she said. And then, quieter: “He told me to, you know. At the end. He said, Barbie, when I’m gone, you go buy yourself a new one. I told him to hush.”
I had to keep my eyes on the road for a minute after that.
The Ford dealer sits on the highway just past the Casey’s, a long low building with a lot full of trucks out front and a row of little SUVs along the side, the windshields lettered in white grease pencil.
I nursed the Buick into a spot by the door. It made one last ugly clunk going into park, as if it knew.
Before Mom even had her door shut, a salesman was crossing the lot toward us with his hand already out.
He was in his sixties, silver-haired and solidly built, in a navy polo shirt.
He had the kind of face that has spent a lot of years outdoors.
“Morning, ladies. I’m Roger.” He shook my hand and then he looked at Mom, and he held on to her hand a second longer. “You’re Dale Duffy’s wife.”
Mom’s mouth fell open. “I am.”
“He bought a used truck off me in 1998,” Roger said. “A blue F-150. Talked me down four hundred dollars and then made me throw in floor mats. I never forgot it. I was sorry to read about him in the paper.”
Mom laughed, the first real laugh I’d heard out of her in weeks. “That sounds exactly like him,” she said. “He drove that truck till 2014. He’d still be driving it if the frame hadn’t rusted through.”
“Well,” Roger said. “What can I do for you today?”
Mom stood up very straight in her red jacket. “I want a new car,” she said. “Not a new used one. A new one. Something small. Something I can get in and out of without my hip complaining.”
I watched Roger. I’ll be honest, I was ready for him. I’d seen salesmen look at a widow alone on a lot and see a soft touch.
I had my hands in the pockets of my gray fleece and my whole body ready to step in.
But he just nodded like she’d asked a perfectly sensible question. “Small SUV, then,” he said. “Sits higher, easier on the hip. Let me show you what we have on the side lot, and you tell me what you like.”
He walked us along the row slowly, at Mom’s pace, not his. He opened doors for her and let her sit in a few.
He didn’t push the expensive one. When she asked him what a trim level was, he told her plainly, and he didn’t make her feel foolish for asking.
Then she stopped.
It was the fourth one in the row, a little SUV, a deep blue that looked dark in the shade and then lit up bright as a creek when the sun hit it.