The Moment …

“Twenty years is a long time.”

Outside the secret door, Devin folds his old clasp knife. “I wasn’t even sure anybody’d be … home. I’ll tell you, there were some dark nights when I thought I imagined the whole thing. The tunnels, the Old Man. You. Especially you.” He spreads his arms. “What are you doing here anyway?  It’s like you knew I was gonna be here.”

“Catherine saw you last night at the carousel and … followed you here.”

“Catherine? You mean Chandler? From the DA’s office?”

And Vincent only nods.

“Small world,” Devin says with a sigh. “So you have a Helper in the DA’s office.”

Vincent takes a breath; his expression just changes. “Catherine is … … … more than a Helper.”

The smallest smile plays on Devin’s lips. His brows raise. “Things change, I guess.” 

A Drabble of exactly 100 words to fill that particular silence 

 
“Catherine is …” 

And the words were swept away, the flood of years between them, its waters threaded currents of mirth, of melancholy.

You left – before our urgencies outgrew the imagined raft, the midnight adventure, the measure of the frog’s leap; while still we journeyed on boyish knees and bare hands, in adventure oblivious to the scrape of stone; before first your eye, then your heart might fix, before first love stopped your breath; before leaving in a different way, wrongly guilty that you did and I might never know. 

But, Devin, I do know. She … is.

“… more than a helper.”