Fearfully, I've always
suspected that I don't have luck with cars. I love old cars though. They
stimulate the imagination. Where does that old smell come from? What's the
story behind that dent? We’ve always had one old car, preferably a stick shift.
The day our house burned down on December 14, 2013, the fire department dropped
so much water on my husband's 2006 Crown Victoria that was parked on the
driveway, we had to junk it for $450. This set in motion our buying a total of
six cars during the three years since,
The first
minivan in that series was the most memorable one. It belonged to an honest man
who told us the air conditioning didn't work, but everything else purred like a
newborn kitty. It was a 1997 Dodge Caravan and we paid about $700 for it.
It smelled like guava and cheese pastelitos--or is it that guava and
cheese pastelitos are always on my mind? My husband who worked tirelessly on the
farm during the week and drove a taxi all weekend, got into an accident with
that minivan just four months after we had bought it and two days after we had
spent $1,100 repairing air conditioning system. During this time, due to
the stress of paying for the 3 bedroom we were renting, our mortgage on the
burned house, and legal bills that ranged from $2,000 to $4,000, we spent two
months without a car.
I would put the babies in
the double-stroller and walked to every destination. Later, we bought the same color
van from a guy who claimed to have had a potato chip vending machine
business. That car didn't last six months. Finally, after the fifth minivan, we
decided to get two newer cars. We lucked out on a 2013 Dodge Caravan. My
husband convinced me that despite the hefty monthly bill, he would use it to do
Uber. This was supposed to be better than driving a taxi. He would have more autonomy and more flexibility. After a month of
Uber, he decided to discontinue his association with that company.
This past Friday, our
generator, which was our only source of electricity, and which was our second
generator in seven months, croaked. It died on one of the hottest nights of the
year. Without the fans, the trailer was an inferno. My husband said he had an
idea. He left for about twenty minutes. When he returned, he told me to take the
two comforters we owned, the pillows, and the children. It turned out that that
Dodge’s seats could be folded inside its floorboards. We laid the comforters and
pillows in the back. My husband reclined in the driver seat and made himself
comfortable. My sixteen year old, wanting to be close to the phone charger and
radio, took the front passenger seat. I was content to be flanked by my two "babies" on the floor with the comforters. My husband talked about inventions he
was thinking of. The kids sang along with the radio. I said a silent prayers
for those all around the world who don't even have a hole to sleep in.
In the morning, we woke
up to light drizzles. After the rain, we trudged back to the
trailer. As I walked, I monitored the ground for puddles or vermin. My four
year old, Phailani, had gone ahead. She stood on the make-shift stairs leading
into the trailer. She pointed to the sky behind me, "Look, Mommy and
Daddy. A rainbow." We turned to see the brightest, widest rainbow right
above us. We turned to look at the joy radiating on Phaila's face. She said in
her sweet voice, "That's beautiful." At that moment, the ugly thing that our lives had become was gone.
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