Before Sunrise

by Rick Mofina

  He’s just late.

  They buried Chet in the cemetery near the church where they were married. Lee was twenty-five when it happened, and he took his father’s death hard.

  In the time after, Lee would spend whole days in his room, dealing with the loss of his dad and whatever nightmares still haunted him from his duty in Iraq. He’d spend hours sitting up all night in the kitchen staring into the darkness, or he’d meet a friend to watch the game or have a beer, but most of the time he’d go off alone in the mountains, hiking or hunting, as if searching for answers.

  That went on for a few months before he’d reached a decision to quit his job as a mechanic in Jade Falls and move out of the house.

  One of his Marine friends was running the service bays at a large truck dealership in Seattle. It was a big operation and he’d offered Lee a high-paying job with good benefits.

  “I hate to leave you, Mom. It hurts so much; I hate this but I have to go.”

  Ren understood.

  She didn’t like it, either, but she understood.

  “I’ll be all right here with Tipper. I’ll be fine, son.”

  Sometimes when she visited Chet’s grave, she prayed for the day Lee would come home and resurrect the towing business and maybe settle down here. Yet in her heart she knew it was never going to happen.

  You gotta let go, girl, she’d tell herself. That’s how it has to be.

  Lee had set out on a new life, a good life, and she was happy for him.

  For not long after Lee had moved to Seattle, he met a girl, Eileen, the prettiest thing. She was a nurse, smart as a whip, and so sweet. After they were married, Eileen had made sure they made the six-hour round trip from Seattle to Ice Lake every month to visit.

  It wasn’t long before Eileen was pregnant with their first, a boy. They’d named him Brett, a mix of Eileen’s dad, Brad, and Chet’s names. Then Eileen had a girl, Lisa, then another boy, Jack. And with the arrival of each of her grandchildren Ren drove into Seattle and stayed with Lee and Eileen to help out.

  Those days had been so joyful.

  Ren felt alive again. Something new was reborn in her heart.

  The greatest thing was how well she got along with Eileen. Maybe it was because Eileen had lost her own parents at an early age that they seemed to be on the same emotional frequency. They understood how people needed to hang on to each other any way they could.

  They were more like mother and daughter than in-laws.

  “You know,” Eileen said, “We’ve got plenty of room at our house and we’re going to add a bathroom in the basement, Ren. Why don’t you move in with us?”

  “Thank you, honey, but I can’t leave the lake. It’d be like leaving Chet. As long as I can look after myself, I’ll stay at our house in the mountains.”

  “Well, if you ever change your mind, you know how we feel.”

  Ren got by, taking things one day at a time, “because that’s how they come,” as Chet used to say.

  She didn’t have to worry about finances. She had life insurance money and a settlement from the logging company whose truck had hit Chet. Doug Elam, the owner of the company, had come to her home, sat in the living room where he’d presented it to her himself with tears in his eyes because he’d known Chet when they were both starting out. Doug hugged her before he’d left.

  “It’s a hell of a thing what life does to us, Ren. A hell of a thing.”

  Isn’t that the truth, Ren thought, checking the time on the oven, then her pies. Everything was coming along. Tipper ambled up to her, she rubbed his head and reflected on Doug Elam’s observation all those years ago.

  “It’s true,” she said looking toward the mountains. “You never know what life has in store for you.”

  Chapter 19

  Ice Lake, Washington

  After Chet’s death and after some soul-searching, Ren sold the towing business to a family in Big Bear River.

  They seemed like good people, and that was important to her.

  Pike Weaver, a former trucker like Chet, and his wife, Sally, were originally from Minnesota. They were a young couple, in their thirties, and had two boys. Ren sometimes saw them in town, saw their gentle manner and felt she’d put Chet’s company in good hands.

  And while Ren missed her husband every day, she never felt alone.

  She had her friends and her card club. Every week someone was the host for poker, snacks, and gossip. She enjoyed keeping busy, baking for local diners, cafes, and church charities.

  Ren remembered the time she was at a church fundraiser in Split Cloud Point, delivering tarts and pies, thinking that she had a lot to be thankful for when she got word from a sheriff’s deputy that Lee had been shot.

  Ren nearly went out of her mind.

  She climbed into her truck and drove straight to Seattle, saying a prayer with every mile until she’d arrived at the hospital where they’d taken Lee.

  Eileen was at his side.

  “I’m okay, mom.”

  Lee was sitting up, his voice strong as he recounted what had happened. It had started out like any other day. He was on his coffee break and had gone to the bank on the corner when five men with masks and guns stormed into the place. They’d used flash bang grenades and ordered people to get on their stomachs on the floor. People near Lee were confused. They were still standing until the gunmen unleashed automatic fire on the group, killing several people around him. Lee was shot in the arm and thigh and lay there bleeding, watching things unfold, studying the shooters, memorizing details before they fled.

  “After they were gone, I used my shirt to help one woman who’d been shot in the neck, but she lost too much blood. She didn’t make it. I did all I could.”

  Ren and Eileen were overcome as he continued.

  “I survived all my time in Iraq, being shot at, facing snipers, booby traps, mines, and every kind of assault, only to come home and walk into a war zone in my own neighborhood. I can’t believe it.”

  Neither could Ren.

  That day had been one of the most frightening of her life.

  In all, six people were shot dead and eight were wounded in the robbery. They never found the killers. Her heart went out to the families of the other victims. She understood loss and couldn’t bear to think of losing Lee, or what it would mean for Eileen and the kids.

  Fortunately, Lee recovered and went back to work while helping the detectives on the case who’d visited him often with their questions about the crime.

  Months after the robbery Lee went to the hospital for one of his follow-up appointments. He told them he had a few cramps, that he’d seemed to get easily tired, that his skin itched, and he was always thirsty. After the doctors ran a number of tests they saw something that had nothing to do with his gunshot wounds. They ran more tests and that’s when everything turned upside-down.

  One of Lee’s kidneys was not working properly. He had kidney disease.

  Eileen and Ren were overwhelmed but Lee stood strong.

  That was his way.

  Quiet and resolute.

  “You got to play with the cards you’re given,” he said.

  He remained positive for Eileen and the kids.

  But in a short time his condition had worsened and the doctors told him that he had End Stage Renal Failure. He needed a new kidney, or he would ultimately die. They put him on a state waiting list for a donor. Until then, he had to undergo dialysis, to do the work of his failing kidney, three times a week with the knowledge that the chances for longer-term survival for dialysis patients his age and condition were around twenty-five to thirty-five percent.

  So much went through Ren’s mind during that time.

  She’d worried about Lee, then there was the impact his condition had on Eileen and the kids, the challenge of getting Lee to the hospital three times a week and the struggle to maintain his job. He had a good health plan and Ren was ready to help out in every way.

  Lee appeared to accept his diagnosis.


  On the surface he seemed at peace with it. But Ren never really knew what he was thinking. Then one day, about a month after he’d first got the news, they were alone in his hospital room and he opened up to her.

  “Mom, I’m afraid for Brett, Lisa, and Jack, because I know what it’s like to lose your dad. I’m worried about Eileen and the kids. They deserve to have a good life, if I don’t make it.”

  “Don’t talk like that. You’re going to make it. We’re going to get through this, things are going to work out, you’ll see.”

  “How do you know?”

  She held back her tears. All she could do was smile at him because the truth was she didn’t know. The truth was she was scared to death at the prospect of losing her son.

  “I just know.”

  That was over a year ago.

  Since then Lee’s medical team had set him up for treatment at his home with a dialysis machine and an osmosis machine. Some days were good for him, others were not. All in all, Lee was a fighter. He was strong. She drove to Seattle almost every other week to look in on him and help Eileen with the kids. Sometimes she took Tipper with her. The kids loved him and he loved the kids.

  Everybody was coping, everybody was brave.

  Now, as Ren’s apple pies baked, she kneaded Tipper’s neck and looked out the window wondering how much more hardship her family was supposed to take.

  She glanced at the clock and whispered another prayer for Lee.

  Day by day, minute by minute, time was ticking down on him.

  Chapter 20

  Southern Alberta

  Little by little, after he and Cathy had divorced, Fortin had tried to repair his life.

  But it was so damn hard, it was almost futile.

  One night, consumed with despair, he was contemplating ending everything, was actually considering the method, when his phone rang. His first impulse was to ignore it but something had urged him to answer.

  “Hello, is this Mr. Will Fortin?”

  The voice on the line had been upbeat and belonged to a young woman.

  “Yes, who’s calling?”

  “Mr. Fortin, my name is Maggie, and I was hoping to discuss with you ways that are guaranteed to save you money on your energy bills.”

  Fortin didn’t respond.

  “Mr. Fortin?”

  “I’m not interested.”

  “I understand, sir, but with Mountain Sky Vista’s new consolidation plan we guarantee you a minimum of twenty-five—”

  “Did you hear me, Maggie? I said I’m not interested.”

  Maggie didn’t speak.

  A few seconds passed then Fortin had pulled the phone from his ear to hang up on Maggie when he’d heard her say: “Sorry to have bothered you,” just before she’d started to cry.

  Fortin hesitated, thought, then he brought the phone back to his ear.

  “Sorry,” he said.

  “Mr. Fortin,” Maggie said, “I’m just trying to do my job, so I can pay my bills.”

  “You’re right, I was rude and I’m very sorry.”

  But Maggie couldn’t help it and had let go.

  “I got a little boy, you know. And my husband left us and he won’t pay child support and I’m behind in my rent. This is the only job I could get. It’s hard, you know?”

  “I know.”

  For the next twenty minutes he and Maggie had talked. Fortin didn’t buy into the Vista plan, but for a moment, they were two human beings who’d each found a shoulder for the pain they were bearing.

  When Fortin finally did hang up, he’d reflected on Maggie’s situation and her determination to make her life better. That’s when he’d come to the realization that he had to stop wallowing in self-pity.

  The next evening Fortin went to A.A.

  It was painful and difficult, but he stuck with it. He quit drinking, started exercising, and took up long-distance running, isolating himself for mile after mile into the night, wondering each time his foot hit the ground if he would ever escape his guilt.

  He sought counselling again and searched for answers. He reapplied for corporal and throughout the process he’d wondered about Cathy. She had moved on with her life, teaching at a school outside of Calgary.

  The biggest change he had to endure was the fact she remarried.

  Cathy had fallen in love with the principal; a soft-spoken guy whose first name was Chadwick. He was a Mormon. Chadwick Endicott. Fortin had met him once when he’d bumped into them at a Calgary mall.

  Chadwick seemed like a decent man. Cathy and Chadwick had two little girls. Cathy was happy, but there was something else. She couldn’t conceal it, but her concern for Fortin flickered behind her eyes.

  “How are you doing, Will?”

  He smiled, then said: “Oh, good, I’m good.”

  But Cathy knew the truth. He saw it reflected in her face.

  “You know,” she said, glancing at Chadwick, as if they’d already discussed what she was going to say, “If you ever want to talk about anything, you can call me.”

  “No, thanks, that’s okay. I’m fine.”

  But Cathy, Chadwick, and Fortin knew he’d lied.

  So it was that on some nights, the bad ones, Fortin had called Cathy’s home number. If she didn’t answer, he’d hang up. When she did answer, he’d talk to her.

  She always listened.

  She was the only one who understood.

  “You have to forgive yourself, Will.”

  Most nights, when Fortin thought of Cathy, happy with Chadwick and their beautiful daughters, he felt like a ghost haunting the life he should’ve had, the one that died that night at the Big Diamond Farm.

  It wasn’t long before Fortin had received word that this time he’d been successful in his bid to make corporal and work out of Calgary. A superintendent who was sympathetic to his history had assigned him to escort duty with a new national security team, apart from what provincial provost sections did. Fortin’s new job involved transporting prisoners across the province, across the country, and around the world.

  He liked the work, enjoyed travelling, but continued to live a solitary life, tortured by second guesses.

  All the while he ached to do one thing, anything, that would redeem him.

  Chapter 21

  Prince Albert, Saskatchewan

  Now, on the same day Ren Carter worried about her son while preparing her pies in Ice Lake, Washington, chains clinked in the Maximum Security Unit of Saskatchewan Penitentiary.

  Eight men, four of them prison staff, approached the cell at the end of the corridor, the one segregated from the rest of the population.

  Inside on his cot, inmate Robert Lazarus Yacine turned his attention from his worn paperback copy of Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil to consider the traces of cologne and cheap motel shampoo that had arrived outside his door.

  “Time to go,” Powers, the deputy warden, said.

  Yacine stood and slid his hands through the portal of his cell door. Cold steel tightened around his wrists and snapped.

  “Step back, please,” Farrell, the youngest guard, said.

  Keys jangled, metal clicked against metal, and Yacine’s heavy cell door opened. He cooperated as a waist chain and leg irons were applied. Taking stock of the men, he knew Powers, he knew Farrell, and the two other prison guards, but not the four strangers. One of them passed him a pen and held a clipboard, thick with forms before him.

  “Your signature is required by the Xs on each record,” the stranger flipped crisp pages of official documents for Yacine to see.

  Letterheads flashed by: the U.S. Attorney General, the U.S State Department, the FBI, the U.S. Marshals Service, Immigration, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, U.S. Homeland Security, Correctional Service Canada, the U.S. Justice Department, and several other agencies.

  It was awkward for him to sign, his cuffs and chains knocked against the clipboard. Chewing gum snapped as one of the new men eyeballed Yacine; six feet two inches, two hundred rock-hard bench-press
ed pounds, laced with tattoos, all packaged in prison-issued green coveralls and sneakers.

  The strangers wore jeans, khakis, button-down oxfords, polo shirts, and windbreakers. The men were cold, grim, and all business as they assessed him amid the distant clang of steel doors and shouting inmates.

  From Yacine’s quick read of names on some of the documents, he figured that two of the strangers were members of the RCMP, Will Fortin and Terry Cox; and the other two were Deputy U.S. Marshals, Arlo Phife and Moss Johnston.

  But Yacine didn’t know who was who.

  “Washington DOC will provide you with personal toilet items, underwear and the like, when they process you at intake,” Powers said, after witnessing Yacine’s signature.

  “May I bring my book?”

  “Personal or library property?” Powers asked.

  “Personal.”

  One of the strangers fanned the book’s pages, examined its spine and binding before concluding that it was a harmless paperback. Nothing concealed.

  “Can I bring it?”

  Powers threw Yacine’s request to the four strangers. It bounced among them until one of them nodded, an indication of who was in charge.

  Yacine figured the one who’d nodded was in his mid-forties and sensed something curious; the stranger’s still face and dark, distant eyes gave him the aura of a haunted man befitting of a new name.

  Dark Eyes.

  Yacine tucked his observations away.

  After processing Yacine and signing him out, he was escorted from the Maximum Security Unit to the rear of the prison where a CSC van and two marked Chevy Impalas from the RCMP’s Prince Albert Detachment waited within the high stone walls of the institution.

  The men put Yacine in the van and helped him with his seatbelt. The gum snapper sat facing Yacine and never removed his eyes from him.

  “Tell me,” the gum-snapper leaned forward, invading Yacine’s space, “that time you shared a cell with Zookoff, that huge Russian, were you his bitch?”