As free-wheeling or dark as things got, there was laughter, a lot of gallows humor and there were tears. It all went to help Fortin understand that if he was going to get better, he had to take a leap of faith and jump. Without realizing it, he had raised his hand slightly.

April saw it and nodded, indicating he was next.

When Fortin’s turn came, he didn’t hold back.

He told the people sitting around him everything, starting with that night he got the call to the Big Diamond Farm, to his guilt and increasing need to drink; to his wife Cathy’s miscarriage, the disintegration of his marriage, hanging on to his job by his fingertips and his suicidal thoughts, and to the call from the Maggie, the salesperson from Mountain Sky Vista that led him to this hall in a basement in Lethbridge.

Tears were rolling down Fortin’s face when he finished.

Most of the others in the group fought their tears as well.

“That’s very brave of you to tell us your story, Will,” April said. “It’s a big step toward recovery.”

When the meeting ended, Fortin was hugged and some members of the group passed him their number to call if he felt himself slipping, or just wanted to talk.

It was emotionally draining but Fortin continued going to that community hall in Lethbridge, meeting after meeting.

Because no matter how bad he might have felt before each meeting, no matter what kind of a week he’d had, Fortin always felt better when he left that hall. To him, it indicated that something was working.

Maybe, he thought, just maybe he could climb out of his darkness.

-Chapter 32-

Southern Alberta

Fortin’s road to recovery was painful and difficult but he stuck with it.

He cut way down, then eventually ceased his drinking, started exercising and took up long-distance running. While he isolated himself for mile after mile as he ran into the night, he could not help wondering each time his foot hit the ground if he would ever escape his guilt.

It was always there.

He sought counseling again, made every effort to participate honestly and searched for answers. He reapplied for corporal and throughout the process he’d thought of Cathy. She had moved on with her life. She was teaching at a school outside of Calgary.

But that wasn’t the only new thing in her life after all this time.

The biggest change Fortin had to endure was the fact she had 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 mall in Calgary’s south end.