Pie Town - Lynne Hinton [53]
They finally reached the end of the state highway and turned onto the interstate. “Now we can make some time,” Oris commented. “I knew I would need this new car,” he added.
Malene glanced over at her father. She seemed surprised. “That’s the real reason you buy a new car so often, isn’t it?”
Oris smiled slightly. He checked his rearview mirror as he pulled off the ramp onto Highway 25, heading north.
“All this time I thought you were throwing your money away or trying to impress somebody. You buy new cars to transport Alex.” She studied Oris. “Why didn’t you say something?”
“Not just Alex,” he responded. “I started buying new cars just after you were born.” He opened the window a bit. It was stuffy in the car, and he was starting to get sleepy. “Catron County is a long ways from doctors and hospitals. All we’ve ever had was that little health clinic over in Socorro, and I never trusted that foreign doctor.”
“I don’t remember us having a new car all the time,” Malene commented.
“That’s because you were paying too much attention to those horses when you were little—and that boy up ahead you married when you got to be a teenager—to notice what your old man was driving. Besides, your mama always kept that old car of her mother’s. That’s the one you mostly rode in.” He turned on his emergency blinkers, following close behind the ambulance.
“That old green Dodge,” she remembered. “Yeah, that’s right, you would never let me ride in your cars. What was up with that?” she asked.
“You were messy,” Oris answered. “And your mother let you eat anything in the car.”
Malene smiled. “She was a lot looser about the rules than you were.”
“That’s an understatement if I’ve ever heard one.” He blew out a breath. “You and Lawrence were coddled from the time you were born until the time . . .” He paused. “Until she died.”
Malene considered her father’s comments. She knew he was right about her mother’s easy ways, her pampering, loving, permissive ways. She had never laid a hand on either of her children, was always patient and gentle in nature, even doling out punishment in soft kind words. Malene had intended to be the same kind of mother, but it hadn’t turned out that way. She had never been as even-tempered with Angel, and even though she had never hit her daughter, she had often been angry enough to do so. The pair had gotten into more than a few battles. Malene always wondered why she hadn’t inherited her mother’s maternal instincts.
“So what about the cars?” Malene asked, recalling their conversation.
“What about them?” Oris responded.
“Why did you think you needed a car after I was born?”
“Your mama had a hard birth with you. We almost lost both of you.” He shook his head. “So much blood. The midwife came over in time, and she was good, but the delivery was way beyond her capabilities. She finally acknowledged that things weren’t going right and called for an ambulance.” Oris rolled the window back up. The temperature in the car had dropped, and he was now chilled. “I couldn’t wait. They were sending somebody all the way over from Glenwood. And they were having a hard time because it was icy and freezing cold. So I heated up the old car I had at the time and decided to drive your mother to Albuquerque myself.”
Malene listened intently. She had never heard the story of her birth.
“Damn Ford broke down thirty miles from Magdalena. Radiator hose busted. We waited for more than an hour before the snowplow finally came up the road. He radioed the ambulance our location, and they got her to the hospital just in time to pull you out feet first.” He gripped the steering wheel.