The Fisherman Read Online Free PDF Page B

seemed reasonable. So they bundled the babies into their car seats, and set off. Dan drove, and he failed to fasten his seatbelt, which Sophie noticed. Dan shrugged. It was no big deal, they were only going a short way. It’s your ticket , Sophie said.
    The Dreschers lived off South Morris Road, which intersects Route 299, the main road into Huguenot, about three miles east of town. 299’s a fast road, has been for as long as I’ve lived on this side of the Hudson. There should have been a traffic light where Morris crossed it, instead of a pair of stop signs. Maybe the light wouldn’t have made any difference. Maybe the fellow steering the big white eighteen-wheeler would’ve had it up around seventy anyway. Dan said he saw the truck approaching from his right as he turned left onto 299, but it didn’t look to be moving as fast as it was. He pulled out, and that great white beast slammed into his Subaru like a thunderbolt. Dan was thrown through the windshield to, as it turned out, safety. Crushed together, car and truck skidded along the road, jagged bits of metal showering sparks as they went. Before they’d stopped moving, the car erupted in a fireball that was answered, a second later, by an explosion from the truck. By the time the first police car raced to the scene, it was too late. It had been too late, I suppose, from the moment Dan’s foot pressed on the accelerator, the car swept out onto the road. Could be it’d been too late the moment the idiot driving that rig had glanced at his wristwatch, realized that, if his morning delivery was to arrive on schedule, he was going to have to make up some time, and stepped on the gas, shifting up as he did. The fire took his life, which I wish I could say I felt worse about, and it consumed Sophie and the twins. Two days later, the coroner told Dan that, in all likelihood, his wife and children had been killed in the impact, and most likely hadn’t suffered much if at all. I guess the man thought that he was giving what consolation he could.
    Dan was polite enough to that coroner, but I think he still was wrapped in the same daze a cop had found him stumbling around the side of the road in. His face was bright with blood, as was the sweatshirt he’d pulled on for going out. At first, the officer wasn’t sure who this tall guy was. As he led Dan toward one of the ambulances that had arrived to find themselves useless, he assumed Dan was a bystander who’d been caught in the accident, an early-morning jogger hit by debris. It took a few minutes for him to sort out that this man had been the driver of the car that was so much fire and metal. When the lightbulb went off over his head, the cop tried to question Dan about the chain of events, but he couldn’t get much coherent out of him. Eventually, one of the EMTs told the guy that Dan was most likely in shock, and in need of the hospital.
    The fire took the better part of an hour and three fire companies to extinguish. Traffic coming into and out of Huguenot was delayed and diverted until early afternoon. Two weeks after the accident, a traffic light was hung at that intersection, which I reckon is what four lives is worth these days. Too late for the Dreschers, it became their memorial.
    A full six weeks passed before any of us saw Dan again. There was a memorial service for Sophie and the twins at the Huguenot Methodist Church, but it was small, for immediate family. By the time I walked in one Monday morning and, despite myself, jumped at the sight of Dan, back at his desk, his losses had faded from my mind, I’m ashamed to admit. I’d like to say this was because I’d been so busy in the interval, or because my own private life had been very good or even very bad, but I’m afraid none of that would be true. Not much more than out of sight, out of mind, I fear. It’s hard to hold onto any tragedies that aren’t your own for very long. That’s something I learned after Marie died. In the short term, folks