����
Mother
told Father to get rid of Driver.�
He was getting muddled; difficult; too old.�
Smelling bad: that �old person� odor.�
Which she could not bear.�
She told him he was getting more and more reckless;
cutting off other cars unsafely; getting into arguments in the
parking garages.� If
he were not an old man, he would have been beaten up, she
added.� Many times.� Many
times, Mother (teary-eyed) told Father he would never
understand the embarrassment she had had to deal with.�
With Driver. ��
����
So
we did.� Got rid
of Driver.� Who
had been with us for twenty years.�
Since before I was born.�
With Father.� When
Father became successful in his business.�
Father who had a bad foot.�
Who could not drive.�
Driver was about fifty when he was hired.�
He was the perfect age.�
Not too young.� For young drivers were understandably less trustworthy.�
Always wanting to speed.�
Checking their hair and faces too often in the mirror.�
Looking at girls.�
Understandably.� Just the right age to be dependable.� To handle himself with discipline.� Mother was only sixteen.�
When she married Father.�
Perhaps too young.�
Father was forty-five.�
Perhaps the perfect age.
����
Driver�s
son came the next day.� To
tell us his father had died in his sleep.�
Last night.� His
son did not appear angry.�
He said his father had a good employer.�
Treated his father as if he were family.�
Driver�s son said we should be the first to know.�
And telephoning would be insincere, he explained.�
So he came in person.�
His father was almost seventy, he added.�
Father kept apologizing.�
�Mother kept opening and shutting her huge
handbag.� She
wanted to pay.� For
something. �I told
Driver�s son his father had no more reason to wake up in the
morning.� Thanks
to us.
