The Immigrant’s Daughter Read Free Page A

said.
    â€œAbout the smoke,” Barbara went on, “I’ve been coughing my head off. Should I worry about it, Sam?”
    â€œOh no, no. We need a drink.”
    â€œSuperb, indeed,” Carla said. “Only one of the three or four greatest and when I say greatest, I mean greatest, but absolutely. Right there with Dizzy Gillespie and Louis Armstrong and Roy Eldridge.”
    â€œToo much, too much!” Lemwax exclaimed. “You are good people. I am glad to have met you, a good meeting, except that we must say God help that poor bus driver and rest his poor soul. Will all them kids be all right, Doc?”
    â€œCuts, contusions, a broken arm, two or three teeth lost and some blood. Not awful by any means. But don’t ride off into the sunset yet, Harvey. Today’s Mother’s birthday.”
    â€œThat is your mother?”
    He had been told that, Barbara remembered.
    â€œShe is too young and too beautiful.”
    â€œBless your heart,” Barbara said.
    â€œWhat I am saying is this,” Sam told them. “In the trunk of my car is a cooler containing six bottles of beautiful French champagne. The celebration of Mother’s birthday is to take place at the home of family of sorts in the valley north of Napa where they have a winery, which is what they live, talk, and know. They are bigoted peasants who will not drink French wine or even discuss French champagne. But Mother must be toasted properly, so just sit still while I get to it, provided you will drink Dom Perignon out of paper cups.”
    Barbara listened to him with amazement. They had just witnessed a horrible accident. The driver of the school bus was dead. The driver of the pickup truck, a Mexican gardener, had been taken to the hospital in critical condition. The bloodstains and the oil stains were still plain on the road and the stink of burning gasoline was still in the air.
    â€œWe did our best,” Sam said, spreading his hands. He saw her expression.
    Well, he had. Dried blood marked them all. Carla, dressed in her white silk best, had not hesitated to plunge into the effort, and now the silk was stained with blood and grime.
    â€œI’m sorry, Mrs. Lavette,” the black man said, as if compelled to apologize for the others. Barbara realized that he was embarrassed, standing in his undershirt, trying to maintain his original moment of dignity. They didn’t know the bus driver. They were under no compulsion to mourn him, or was the whole world under a compulsion to constantly mourn the dead? What do the dead deserve? Barbara clasped her hands and stood stiff and very still for a long moment.
    â€œAre you all right?” Carla asked her.
    â€œYes,” she whispered. “Just shaken.”
    Sam opened a bottle of champagne. Carla opened a package of plastic cups. The cork popped.
    Tenderly, Sam said to his mother, “Drink this. It will help.”
    She shook her head. She was crying, softly, gently. Even more embarrassed, Harvey Lemwax said that he really had to go.
    â€œOne for the road,” Sam said, handing him the cup of champagne. He filled a cup for himself and one for Carla, but then offered his cup to Barbara. “Mother?”
    She pushed away the tears with the back of her hand and accepted it. Sam poured another for himself, offering a toast: “Life, not death. There were twelve kids in the bus and they’ll all be okay. We got them out.”
    Barbara nodded.
    â€œThen bottoms up!”
    The wine was cold and good, and it eased Barbara’s throat, and it came to her that if they had not been directly behind the school bus and if Sam had not plunged into it, followed by herself and Carla and Harvey Lemwax — if another two or three minutes had gone by — the children would have died.
    â€œAnd in this crazy, lunatic country,” Carla was telling Lemwax, “my husband could be sued. Can you imagine, for saving lives he could be