By ali4050284 
My dad bought his 1969 Ford Mustang the same week I was born. Candyapple red, 302 V8, black interior. He always said the car and I arrived together, and he’d never decide which one he loved more. Mom said that was a lie. He loved the Mustang more.
That car was the background music of my entire childhood. Dad drove Mom to the hospital in it the night I was born. He taught me to drive in it when I was sixteen, his hand hovering over the wheel, yelling every time I rode the clutch. On summer nights he’d wash it in the driveway while the radio played, and I’d sit on the curb just watching him, because watching my dad with that car was like watching a man pray.
When he got sick, the Mustang went into the barn. He said he’d get it running again when he felt better. He never felt better.
After the funeral, I couldn’t touch it. I just closed the barn doors and left it there. For thirty years.
Thirty Years of Dust
The barn became the place I avoided. Every time I walked past it, I could picture him in there — sleeves rolled up, grease on his forearms, humming along to the radio. So I let the dust pile up. Mice moved into the back seat. The tires went flat and then rotted. The candyapple red faded to something closer to rust.
My wife asked me every few years what I planned to do with it. “Someday,” I’d say. Someday never came.
Then last spring, half the barn roof caved in during a storm. The insurance adjuster took one look at the Mustang and said, “That thing’s a parts car now, friend. You should sell it before the rest of the roof goes.”
He was right, and I hated him for it.
The Restorer’s Visit
I called a restorer named Dale who buys old Mustangs. He walked around the car, whistling, tapping the fenders, shaking his head at the floor pans.
“She’s rough,” he said. “But the bones are good. I can give you four thousand for parts.”
Four thousand dollars for thirty years of my father’s life. I almost told him to leave.
“Let me at least pull the seats,” Dale said. “I want to see how bad the floors are before I commit.”
He unbolted the driver’s seat and tipped it forward. And that’s when we both went quiet.
Under the Driver’s Seat
Taped to the underside of the seat springs was a yellowed envelope. My dad’s handwriting, in thick black marker: “FOR MY SON — WHEN YOU’RE READY.”
My hands were shaking so bad Dale had to peel the tape off for me.
Inside was a letter, dated three weeks before Dad died. And a photograph I’d never seen: my dad as a young man, leaning against the Mustang the day he bought it, grinning like he’d stolen something.
The letter said the car was never just a car.
The Letter He Never Sent
“Son,” it read, “if you’re reading this, I’m gone, and you’ve finally gotten around to dealing with my old car. Took you long enough.”
“I bought this Mustang with the first real paycheck I ever earned. I drove your mother on our first date in it. I drove you home from the hospital in it. Every important mile of my life has this car’s fingerprints on it.”
“Here’s what I need you to know: I didn’t leave it in the barn because I gave up on it. I left it there because I knew you’d need something of mine to hold onto, and I knew you’d know what to do when the time was right.”
“Don’t sell her for parts, son. She’s got another hundred thousand miles in her. Fix her up. Drive your own kids in her. And when they ask about the old man in the photograph, you tell them he loved two things in this world — his family, and his Mustang — and he never could decide the order.”
I sat in that barn and cried for twenty minutes. Dale pretended to check the engine bay.
She Runs Again
I didn’t sell the Mustang. I spent eight months and a lot more than four thousand dollars bringing her back. New floor pans, new interior, the 302 rebuilt. I kept the faded paint on the driver’s door, though — Dad’s elbow wore it thin over thirty years of driving with the window down, and I couldn’t bring myself to erase him.
Last month, I drove my own son to his first day of high school in that car. He sat where I sat at sixteen. The radio played, and for a second, I swear I could hear my dad humming along.
Some cars are just cars. And some cars are the people we loved, still taking us places.
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