The water dazzled him with the whiteness of sky, the hulking black shape of the mangled Buick quivering below his elbows. He shattered the image in his thrashing attempts to scramble out of the ditch, but the mud beneath him was too wet, too yielding.

One final spasm like a netted trout, and he too relented, sinking beneath the water into the murky clouds he had churned up.

Perhaps it was better this way, he thought. Virginia could remarry; young Bill would still have a father to look up to.

Who knew, he might even grow up to be President.