"Lord, if you get me through this, I promise I'll do better," Philemon Laurent said, looking at the clear blue wintry sky, as he walked out of the weekly meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous, held in the basement of the community center located not far from the Rideau Shopping Center in downtown Ottawa, Ontario. The twenty-nine-year-old, Haitian-born RCMP constable couldn't believe how far he had fallen, but fervently hoped that he wasn't beyond redemption...
"Well, hello there," came a familiar feminine voice, rousing Philemon out of his murky thoughts. Selene Bellefeuille-Laurent stood there, leaning against the hood of her bright red Rav4. The six-foot-tall, curvy and very voluptuous, brown-haired, alabaster-skinned and green-eyed Quebecoise looked at Philemon Laurent, and he sighed deeply. Hope Selene's not here to play the blame game, the young man thought.
For Philemon sensed another lengthy tirade coming on. After he lost his latest battle with sobriety, his wife Selene took off with their son Gilbert to her parents ancestral estate outside Montreal, Quebec, and this was his first time seeing her in weeks. For three weeks now, Selene had ignored his phone calls, his texts, his emails and his attempts at Skype. Yup, she was a goner...until she wasn't.
"Selene, um, what are you doing here?" Philemon asked, surprised to see his estranged wife standing there, a wry grin on her lovely face. Clad in the bright red Carleton University Ravens sweatshirt he'd once worn during his days as a university basketball superstar and tight black jeans, Selene looked almost exactly the same way she once did, in their halcyon days at Carleton University. She still looked like the gal who came to every game, always cheering for him...
"Sergeant Roark told me I'd find you here," Selene replied, and Philemon bit his lip. He'd met Sergeant Marcus Roark during his days at the Police Academy, and the tall, dark-skinned, fifty-something, Jamaican-Canadian RCMP officer had been tougher on him than all the other instructors. Seriously, the old guy gave him hell. At the time, Philemon genuinely disliked the man, until the old cop accosted him on graduation day, and gave him some words of wisdom...
"Philemon, you seem like a decent young man, if I was tough on you, son, it's because I believe in you, the RCMP can be a tough environment for minority officers, and you ought to know by now that we are not measured by the same standard as the white guys," Sergeant Roark said, and Philemon nodded, and shook the older man's hand. Mr. Roark looked at him proudly and Philemon nodded gravely.
As part of that first generation of black men to join the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Sergeant Marcus Roark had endured the kind of hell that Philemon prayed he never went through. Philemon heard horror stories about how tough the federal police force could be on minority guys and female officers. Mr. Roark was definitely worth listening to, this much was clear to Philemon. He'd kept in touch with the older man as he began his career as a federal police constable, and it's a good thing he did...
"Heaven bless that man," Philemon said, and Selene looked at him, blinking back tears. For this was the man she loved, her estranged husband and the father of their son. Selene remembered feeling so proud as she held hands with Philemon as they graduated from Carleton University in the summer of 2011. Against all odds, the ultimate odd couple, the tall, handsome black athlete and the white female nerd, actually made it.
Philemon got his bachelor's degree in Criminology and Selene earned hers in Neuroscience, in preparation for a career in Medicine. A few days after they graduated from Carleton University, Philemon had two surprises in store for Selene. Firstly, he'd gotten an acceptance letter from the police academy. Secondly, he finally put a ring on it, as they say.
Overjoyed as he proposed to her inside East Side Mario's restaurant, Selene threw herself into Philemon's arms and kissed him. Fast forward five years, they were married, with a son and a nice townhouse in the suburb of Barrhaven, Ontario. Oh, and Phil was now a federal policeman, and Selene worked for the Counseling Services of the Royal Ottawa Hospital.
Everything was fine, until tragedy struck at work. RCMP constable Philemon Laurent watched his partner, Leander Garrick, get gunned down by a two-bit thug during a police raid in Vanier, Ontario. The police later gunned down the assailant, a bozo named Patrick Gauthier. The shock of losing his partner profoundly afflicted Philemon. Quite frankly, he hadn't been the same since. Indeed, the once dedicated young cop crawled into a bottle, and never got out...
"Phil, I want you to know that I'm here for you, I'm not abandoning you, or our marriage," Selene said, and Philemon blinked in surprise. He remembered the morning when everything came to a head. He'd fallen asleep in the basement, after a night at the bar. When he came to, Selene had packed a suitcase, and then left with their son Gilbert, in spite of Philemon's protests. On top of everything else, the RCMP ordered Philemon to take some time off, basically three months worth, and to attend mandatory counseling sessions...