A Dog Tragedy on Gallup Road

Dutchess was an amazing dog and as loyal of a companion as any teenager could ever ask for.
For as much as I loved Dutchess, there was a day that I was willing to give her up. I was leaving my job at the golf course and was zooming down Gallup Road in my new-to-me Chevy Cavalier. Those long summer days working in the sun were tiring, and the relief at the end of the workday had me heavy on the gas pedal. Gallup Road is a country road gone slightly suburban—that is, there are houses down one side of it and a cornfield on the other. Being slightly country, both sides of the road were lined with a three-foot deep ditch.
I was just getting up to speed when a small golden retriever darted out of the cornfield and ran into the road. I tried swerving and slammed on the brakes, but the ditch didn’t allow me enough leeway to avoid hitting the dog. In his confusion, the dog spent its last seconds contemplating which way to run. As the puppy faked left and faked right, my car slammed into its body with a tremendous yelp and crash. By the time I came to a stop, the dog was lying still in the road, surrounded by black plastic pieces of my broken car. There was a moment of silence before the dog started to move.
As one of its legs twitched and it tried to raise its head, I heard screaming. As I got out of my car, I realized that there was a family in the front yard of the house the dog had been running towards. There were two older women with black busy hair—they were the ones that were screaming. They stood up from their green striped lawn chairs and screamed, “No! No! No! Not the Dog!” they sobbed convulsively as the man who was with them ran to the aid of their pet.
The man knelt in the middle of the road and cradled the dog’s head. The dog looked about, wide-eyed. I stood speechless for what felt like twenty years and I could barely throat out, “I’m…sorry.” The man was crying. He screamed a steady stream of how he shouldn’t have thrown the ball and how I was driving too damn fast and a few oh my god’s before turning his attention to the dog—who was barely alive and had blood coming from its mouth. The dog’s eyes looked at me and at the man before staring off into the sky. His breathing was labored and the man soothed the dog and stroked its head. His hand was covered in spit and blood.
He spoke softly, saying things like “It’s OK” over and over again as the dog whimpered. He turned to me and made me cry. He told me that this dog was a gift for his son, and that he was glad that his son didn’t see me hit the dog. He wiped his eyes and continued cradling the dog’s head as it breathed and wiggled slightly, as if it expected to be able to get up and run around some more.
He continued to talk to me. He said that his son was in bed right now inside the house, and that he didn’t know what he was going to tell his son. The dog was a gift for his son as a welcome home present from the hospital. He had just had cancerous tumors removed and this dog brought some joy to his son’s life.
I could think of nothing else. I offered to give Dutchess as a replacement.
He told me to leave. He told me to go away—he said I had caused more pain than what he could deal with and that I should leave right now. As I got into my car, I could hear the crying ladies scream from the yard about driving too fast. They called me a dog killer. They called me a murderer.