Run To the Sea
Chapter 11
Sue Glasgow 

---

Realizing the rainwater would be filling the drainage ditch at  the  park entrance,  Vincent  detoured  to the tunnel beneath Catherine's basement.  Once he was Below,  he rested against a wall and wrung the water from the folds  of  his  cloak.  Conflicting  thoughts tumbled through his mind in myriad bits and pieces.  The  storm  which  had  raged  Above  had  taken residence in his heart,  and he needed time to think, to be alone, and to bring order to the chaos of his thoughts and  feelings.  He  straightened and  moved quickly through the Tunnels.  Arriving in his chamber he threw his cloak aside and pulled his journal and pen from the shelf.  He sat at the  table  and opened the diary,  hoping to find words which would bring order to his thoughts,  but almost immediately he was again on his  feet, feeling  an  urgent  restlessness.  With  long strides he paced until his glance settled on the place beside the ladder where Catherine  had  held him.  Had  that  moment  been  minutes  or days ago?  Leaning against the ladder,  he inhaled her lingering fragrance,  and his heart raced at  the thought of her.  She was the center of everything,  his need to go Above, his escape from aloneness,  and the nameless fears which  set  him  apart from other men.

Being  with  her gave meaning and joy to his existence,  but right now he needed desperately to find that part of himself he had lost in the  past two  months.  Tonight  he  had  been  given  insights and glimpses of the answers he  sought.  All  the  pieces  lay  before  him, but  they  were distorted by their nearness...and by his need for Catherine.

He pushed away from the ladder.  As he turned to pace the room again, his  look  fell upon a piece of salt-stained driftwood displayed on the nearby shelf.  Picking it up  and  turning  it  over  slowly,  he  retraced  the decorative carvings he  had  cut  into  the  gnarled surface  long  ago.  Memories returned of another time when the restlessness had come, when he was  seventeen and recovering from a loss.  Picking up the driftwood,  he carried it with him to a storage cabinet which  held  his  old  journals.  One by one,  he searched through the dusty volumes until he found the one marked 1972.  Beside it  he found a copy of Gibran's, "The Prophet". Taking both books and the carved wood with him,  he gathered his wet  cloak  and left his chamber.

                                                      ***

Father  found  Vincent in the Whispering Gallery,  sitting alone with one leg dangling over the edge of the bridge and the other knee bent with one arm draped over it.  In his lap he held a piece of carved  driftwood.   A book and an  old leather  journal  lay on the floor at his side.  Lost in deep thought, Vincent was tracing the design in the wood,  and it was not until Father moved to put his torch in the wall niche that Vincent looked up at him.  His glance was brief before he turned his stare to the depths below the bridge.

Father  stood  in  the  glow  of  the torch.  "It is strangely quiet here tonight."

"It is raining Above.  Sometimes rain muffles the sounds so  they  cannot be heard."

"Your  hair  is  wet."  Father commented as he braced himself against his cane and slid stiffly to the floor.  Leaning against the wall,  he looked at  Vincent  carefully  and realized his son's clothes were soaked.  Even the heavy cloak hung as a sodden mass over his shoulders.  "You  must  be cold."

"No."

Father  bent  both  his  knees painfully and rested his elbows upon them.  His hip came in contact with the hard ground,  and he shifted his weight. He tried to organize his thoughts,  being very careful not to trip any of the defenses which Vincent had been  perfecting lately.  "I  assume...by your dampness...you  have  been  in  the rain."  Vincent did not respond.  After a long silence Father tried another approach. "Samantha is a strongwilled young lady.  Even after I sent  for  Brian...and  talked  to  them together  I  am  not certain I made her understand her error.  Tomorrow I will send for Lou.  He enjoys entertaining the children,  but I think  he sometimes forgets the responsibilities."  He paused and asked cautiously,  "I was under the impression Samantha returned to the Tunnels  before  you found her."

"She did."

"Oh...  But you have been...Above...in the rain."

"Yes."

Vincent  sighed and looked at Father.  He almost smiled as he watched the older man squirm.  Father was desperately wanting to ask questions,  and he was trying so hard to be subtle. "Father, I walked Catherine home."

Father's  eyebrows shot up,  and a whole new set of questions formed.  He waited  until  he  was  confident  his  voice  would  not
betray   him.  "Catherine."

Vincent nodded.

"I think...perhaps, I have missed something."

Vincent  sighed  and  pushed  himself to his feet.  "Father,  you look so uncomfortable sitting there.  Come, we'll go back to my chamber, and I'll make tea."

"And you will change into some dry clothes."

Vincent reached down and assisted the older man as he  struggled  to  his feet.  "If you say so."
 

They walked back to the home chambers in silence, but Father did not have to be told something important had happened.  At last he sat in Vincent's large   chair with a cup of hot tea in his hands.  Vincent laced up the dry shirt  he  had  just  put on,  then he placed his wet boots near the warm hearth next to his cloak which was carefully hung there.  From the  floor of  his wardrobe he took a pair of dry boots and pulled them on.  Finally he sat down across from Father and reached for his  own  tea.  He  sipped once from the hot mug, then held it in both hands.  "Father," he paused. "I'm going down to the river."

Father's eyes widened. "To the river!"  His son nodded. "The river...it's been such a long time.  Why now?"

"I need to be alone...to think."

"But  surely  that can be arranged without your going so far... It hasn't been that long since you were hurt."

"It has been over two months," Vincent reminded him.

"But to have you go all that way...alone."

Vincent pushed back his chair and stood.  He walked across  the  chamber. Father  was  always  amazed  how  well Vincent could pace in such a small area.  He was pacing the same patterns he had  established  when  he  and Devin  had  shared  this  chamber.  Father glanced at the floor to see if Vincent had worn a path there yet.

"Actually, I think I may be going even further than you think."

"I don't understand."

"Father,"  Vincent stopped at the table and placed the piece of driftwood  in  front  of  the  older man,  "do you remember when I was seventeen?  I tried to find where the river goes..."

Father picked up the carving.  "You followed it almost to the  ocean  and found this beside the river."  He realized now what book Vincent had been carrying.  Taking the journal from the table, he read,  "Nineteen seventy two.  You have been reading the log of that trip."  He frowned. "Vincent,  most of your travels were much shorter.  That  time  you  were  gone  for three weeks."

"I  was  so  close  to  the ocean  the  river water tasted of salt."  His expression was far away.  "Father,  I know there had to be a way out,  to see  the  sky.  Maybe  if the tides were lower,  or if there were another opening above the river's mouth." He stopped a moment lost in his memory. "I found the most wonderful places.  There was a grotto where  the  water was  as black as ink,  and my hand disappeared when I put it in.  And the ice chamber where hot steam rose through the fissures and froze into snow before it could warm the room."

Father sank back into his chair and looked carefully into his son's face.  "Vincent, what happened tonight?"

Vincent looked down at his cup.  "Catherine and I...talked."

The older man  frowned,  grasping  fully  the  meaning  of  those  words. "Talked." So Catherine had finally broken through all those defenses.  He wondered  what  it  had cost her...and his son.  He paused.  "Are you all right?"

"I will be."

"And after your...talk...you walked her home.  Through the park,  in  the rain."

Vincent nodded.  "Actually she lost her shoes, and I carried her."

"You have been Above."  Father hesitated.  "Will you be going up again?"

"I  don't know.  That is one of the things I must think about.  Catherine says she will meet me on my own terms,  and she has left that decision to me."

Father  sighed.  "Well...I hope that now...things can become easier,  for  you...both."

Vincent smiled. "And you." He reached out and put his hand upon Father's. "Father, you have been very patient."

The older  man  sucked  in  a  breath  and  looked  toward  the  ceiling. "Patient...Vincent, if you only knew how impatient..."  He sighed  deeply  and looked into his son's blue eyes.  "You  know  these  trips  of  yours always  frighten  me.  If  only  you  would  not go  alone.  What  about Mouse...?"

With a sigh Vincent shook his head.  "We have had  this  same  discussion every time I have gone for the last eighteen years."

Father  waited  for him to say more,  but Vincent had resumed his pacing, and it was evident he had said all he  intended  to  say. "When  do  you expect to go?"

"As soon as possible."

Father  sat  back and watched his son.  The restless energy was back.  He had watched this cycle time and time  again.  Months  would go  by  with Vincent  living  the  life  of  the  Tunnels,  working hard,  and finding satisfaction in forays Above.  But then one day Father would  look  into his  son's  face  and  know  this life was not enough.  And Vincent would leave.  The first time he had been little more than a boy.  He  had  been gone four days,  and he had returned,  safe, and satisfied.  Father shook his head.  He should be relieved this was happening  again  he  supposed. It  was  a completely normal reaction on Vincent's part to the long self- imposed confinement of the past months. "Have you told Catherine?"

Vincent stood back and shook his head again.

"She will worry."

"She will understand."

"Will she?  Does she know you that well?"

"She will let me do what I must."