After the Dawn
Authors: Francis Ray
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To my loyal readers.
You make the long, solitary hours
at the computer worthwhile. Bless each of you.
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Acknowledgments
Many thanks to Richard South, manager of Regogo Racing Team for Vintage Car Racing. His expertise was invaluable. I'd also like to thank Lisa Williams South, his gracious and charming bride, for the introduction.
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Contents
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Prologue
In Abe Collins's eighty-one years of living, he'd made his share of mistakes. Believing he had time to correct them, he'd pushed matters to the back of his mind. Six days ago he'd been given a fast reality check, and it wasn't pretty.
Propped up on pillows, wearing an oxygen mask, and hooked to two annoying machines, he was as weak as a baby.
He'd always taken his health for granted. After all, he'd never been sick with more than a cold. His cholesterol might be a little high, but whose wasn't over the age of fifty? So he forgot to take his high blood pressure medicine. He was president of Collins Industry.
His company manufactured and shipped close to two hundred turbochargers a day. He arrived at work an hour before the shift started and was usually the last one to leave the factory. He believed in letting his people do their jobs, but they also knew he kept an eagle eye on productivity.
Odds weren't in his favor that he'd be able to continue. He'd built Collins Industry from the ground up. It was as much a part of him as his hands. The thought that his company wouldn't continue was unthinkable. To make sure that didn't happen, he had to own up to his mistakes. He just hoped and prayed he had a chance to correct the biggest one before it was too late.
He'd passed out talking to the manager of his plant and awakened in the hospital fighting to breathe with an elephant sitting on his chest. He'd had a heart attack.
Abe was alive by the grace of God, but he wasn't out of the woods yet. The doctors wanted to do a quadruple bypass. They'd given him the odds at his age of getting off the table. They weren't good enough for Abe ⦠at least not until he had all of his ducks in a row.
Slowly, Abe twisted his head toward his nightstand. He saw the first things every morning, the last things he saw each nightâthe grouping of family pictures. Family had always been the most important thing in the world to him. To his everlasting shame, he hadn't always shown it.
There was his wife, Edith, beautiful and vibrant at her sixtieth birthday party before cancer took her from them nine short months later. Next were their sons, Evan and William, in their varsity football uniforms in high school. Abe's eyes misted.
William, their youngest, had also been taken. When Abe heard the news that his son's plane had gone down in a thunderstorm, killing him and his wife, Abe hadn't thought he could go on. His heart had actually ached; it still ached.
Despite knowing you should love your children equally, Abe had always favored William, the child of his heart. Smart, funny, and as stubborn as his father, William rarely backed down, and they'd butted heads a time or two. One of those regrets was that they'd had an argument before William had flown off to Austin for a meeting with one of their suppliers.
He and his young wife, Gayle, never made it. Abe swallowed the sorrow, the regret. His gaze moved to the smiling picture of William and Gayle's only child, Samantha, when she was sixteen. Abe added her to the growing list of regrets.
Samantha had wanted her parents to stay and see her in the lead part of the high school senior play. Abe had told her and his son there'd be other playsâthe trip was important to the company.
Abe's punishment was having to tell her that her parents weren't coming home. She'd thought he meant they were spending the night in Austin and had said she guessed the company still came first. Explaining that their plane had gone down was the hardest thing he'd ever done. She'd fought him when he'd tried to hold her, her anger and misery making her uncontrollable. He'd accepted the pelting of her small fists against his chest, held her when she'd finally begun to sob.
That was the last time he remembered holding her.
Four months later, she was in Stanford University in California. She always had excuses for not coming home. His other two grandchildren from his oldest son, Evan, didn't even pretend he was important in their lives. Shelby, the oldest at thirty-two, had been married twice. Her brother, Ronald, was thirty, working on his second marriage, and as lazy as they came. As far as Abe knew, they'd called once since his heart attack and then had gone on with their lives.
What gave him hope that it wasn't too late for him and Samantha to find common ground was that she had come from Houston the same day he was admitted to the hospital. She was still here, sitting with him, ready to fluff his pillow, give him a sip of water, reassure him, hold his hand.
The smile forming on his lips faded. He'd missed so much in his life because of his stubbornness, and he was paying for his know-all attitude. His hand swept across his chest. William had wanted to modernize the factory, but Abe had stubbornly refused.
He'd started the company in 1972 with an idea that he could invent a turbocharger with more power and half the size. He'd had a thousand dollars and the unfaltering faith of Edith. They'd both scraped and saved to get the moneyâwhich wasn't easy with two boys in college. But it had paid off.
Collins Industry made the best turbochargers in the Southwest. He saw no reason to change. What was good thirty years ago was still good.
Yet he was alive because of the remarkable changes in the medical profession. He had a chance for even more years. He wanted to ensure that Collins Industry had the same chanceâand it would take new thinking and modern technology to do it. That required the right people in charge.
What he was thinking would cause problems and hurt, but Abe didn't see any other way. His callused hand felt the wires and leads connected to his still muscled chest, and he grudgingly accepted he was on the downside of his life. He dared not put off the conversation that would tear his family even further apart. His eyes closed, then opened.
Stretching out his left hand, he picked up the picture of his oldest son, fifty-nine-year-old Evan, and his wife, Janice. They were in evening attire; Evan wore a black tuxedo, and Janice had on a shiny silver gown that probably cost half as much as one of his workers' yearly salary. They'd been at the Cattleman's Ball in Dallas. Tickets were six figures, but Evan said it was good for business. He said the same thing whenever he spent lavishly. And he spent a lot.
Sadness had Abe's hand gripping the silver frame. It was hard to admit that his remaining son might not be the man to run the factory. Evan didn't put the time or the effort into the company. William never paid any attention to the time clockâunless his family needed him. Evan left most days promptly at five. He was vice president, liked the title, but did little to help the company's bottom line if it didn't mean socializing or traveling.
Abe acknowledged that it might have been his fault. He'd always run the company his way, seldom asking for guidance or a second opinionâone of the things William didn't like. While William kept trying to get his father to change, Evan cashed his paycheck and went about his business. But therein lay the problem: Profits were way down. Collins Industry was in a fight to survive.
Abe had to accept that a man he'd ordered off his property years ago might be the one to save his company. It was hard for a man who'd once thought he and the Man Upstairs controlled his destiny, thought that he didn't have to ask any man for anything, to admit just how wrong he had been.
Abe wouldn't blame the man if he laughed in his face. He certainly didn't need the headache or the money, but Samantha would need help to pull the company out of its tailspin and, sadly, that help wouldn't come from Evanâespecially once the contents of Abe's new will were known.
How had it come to this? He loved his family, did his best to see that they had more than just the necessities, that they would be people you could count on, proud to know, and capable of carrying on the family company. He'd failed.
Emotions clogged his throat. He thought of his wife, the only woman he'd ever loved. Perhaps if she had lived, he would have learned to bend a little. Perhaps not. She'd called him bullheaded on more than one occasion, but she'd loved him just as he'd loved her. He still did.
A soft knock sounded at the door. “Granddad?”
Even with the difficult task before him, the mistakes and regrets, he thanked God he heard the love and concern in Samantha's soft voice. Despite his overwhelming blunders, he hadn't killed her love for him.
“Baby girl, come in,” he said, then cursed his body because his once booming voice now trembled in weakness.
“I'll let her in, Mr. Collins.” Bertha Scott, the private duty nurse the doctor insisted come home with him, rose from the nearby chair and went to the door and opened it.
“Hello, Ms. Scott.”
“Come on in, Ms. Collins,” the nurse greeted her.
Samantha took a hesitant step into the room. He understood why. The trip from the hospital yesterday put more strain on his already weak heart. His doctor, who had ridden in the ambulance with him, had wanted to take him back and schedule surgery immediately. Abe had refused but had to agree to no visitors until late the next day.
He motioned her closer, annoyed that just that bit of movement made his heart act up, the monitor to increase its annoying noise. His nurse was back by his side, checking his vitals, studying him as much as the machines. It was useless to tell her that he was all right. They both knew he wasn't.
“CanâI have aâword alone with my granddaughter?” he asked. The nurse hesitated. “Please.”
“I'll be outside.” She closed the door softly after her.
Samantha slowly approached the bed, her light brown eyes, so much like her father's, watching him as closely as the private duty nurse had. “It's good to have you home, butâ”
Abe held up his hand. Samantha had been the most verbal against him putting off the surgery. “My heart attack made me realize that I'm not indestructible. I needed to get things in order.”
He watched her swallow, blink her eyes rapidly, and catch his hand. “Granddad, you're going to be fine.”
He nodded, breathed in the oxygen flowing from the nearby tank. He wished he could take the mask off. He didn't want her seeing him like this.
“Why don't you rest and we'll talk tomorrow?”
As much as he could, he tried to tighten his hand on hers. Tomorrow wasn't promised. “IâI want you to run Collins Industry.”
He watched shock widen her eyes, lines form in her otherwise smooth forehead. She was as beautiful as her mother and probably just as sweet. She'd be lost and overwhelmed if the man he'd selected didn't help her. “Collins Industry needs ⦠needs you to keep it going, keep it the company your father believed in.”
