Chapter 5 - Part 2

We swam toward the middle and just as we arrived, a boat shaped like a large swan came into view from around the far corner. “Ready?” Dad asked. “Brittney, you hang onto Tommy’s shirt. Sonya, you hold onto mine. Can you grab the boat, Tom?” Dad asked.

It was the first time in a long while he had talked to me without a jab hidden inside his words. I savored it and only managed to nod mutely.

As the boat swung toward us, I grabbed for the edges of the boat. The swan shape was so smooth, though, there didn’t seem to be any place for handholds. My hands just kept slipping off. The top edge of the boat where people would ride was too high up to reach. My hands scrabbled against the sides of the boat in desperation. I noticed that Dad had managed to dig his fingertips into a large, plastic feather, but his grip was too precarious and he slipped back into the water, too. We watched in frustration as the boat continued to glide away from us and around the bend. In some ways it seemed so inviting and in others it seemed so out of reach.

By now the slow movement of the water had taken us from the first place we had splashed into the water and into another bend of the river. Dad spoke up again, “We’ll just have to let the water carry us out. We’ll have to reach the exit sometime.”

We started swimming slowly with the current. We watched a few other swans float by. Around the next curve in the tunnel, I saw another tunnel that branched off from the main one that we were in. Just then another swan boat swam into view, but this one was different from the others. This one had people in it. It had a whole family in it, in fact. I looked at them in wonder. The mother and father had their arms around each other and around the kids in the boat with them. My heart twisted inside me and I had to turn away. It was no fair. I wanted to be in a family like that. I wanted my mom and dad to love each other enough to show their love to each other. And I wanted them to love us and show us love! I wanted to have my dad’s arm around me. My eyes stung with unshed tears and my throat ached. I swam harder.

I didn’t notice that I had changed my course slightly and was following their boat. I thought their boat would continue down the main tunnel like the other boats had done, but when it got to the side tunnel, it turned and disappeared that way.


As I watched the boat turn and disappear down the tunnel, a wave of shock swept over me. I suddenly realized who that family reminded of. There was a mom and a dad and a teenage son and a school-age daughter. It was us! I was sure of it.

I changed direction in earnest and started swimming with all my might toward the other tunnel.

“Tom!” my mom cried. “Where are you going?”

I didn’t have time to answer her. I was so sure that I needed to get in that boat. I was also sure that not only was that boat the key to getting out of here, it was also the key to everything I had ever wanted. All my heart yearned for had just gone down that side tunnel and nothing was going to stop me from following it!

“TOM!” my dad yelled. “GET BACK HERE!!”

I noticed somewhere in the back of mind that he sounded angry again and almost – was I just imagining it? – panicky. I didn’t care, though. Nothing mattered anymore. Nothing mattered but that boat. I thought I caught a glimpse of light reflecting off the side of it somewhere deep in the tunnel. I redoubled my efforts.

That was when the whirlpool hit or I guess, more accurately, that was when I hit the whirlpool. It was gloomy in there – almost dark – and I had been so preoccupied that I hadn’t noticed it. The water grabbed me and jerked me to the left – much faster than I had ever managed to swim even when I was working with the current. Then the water swung me up and to the right before dragging me backward again.

“Help!” I screamed as I felt the water start to pull me downward as well. When I was a kid I used to bring my toys into the bathtub. After I pulled the drain, I’d watch as they swirled around and around and finally got pulled down the vortex. There was a grate over the drain, so I never lost my toys. I did not think that I was going to be quite so lucky – if being smashed against a storm drain can be considered lucky.

Water filled my mouth. I spit it out, gulped air and managed to yell again, “Help! Help me! I need out of here!!!”

Suddenly a strong hand grasped my collar from behind. I felt myself being pulled against the pull of the whirlpool back toward the main tunnel, back toward my family. Finally I felt the pull of the water release me and I was back in the gentle water once more. I gasped and spluttered and finally was able to take several deep breaths. Relief flooded through me. I was alive! I was out of danger.

Or so I thought.

I turned to find my rescurer. My dad had grabbed hold of an outcrop from the wall to ground himself and reached through the torrent to drag me to safety. He was gasping from the effort, but he recovered his breath quickly enough.

“How many stupid, idiotic, impulsive things are you going to do, young man, before you get yourself killed? You know what? You are not even a young man. You’re too foolish to deserve such an appellation. You are just a crazy kid. That’s all you are – a crazy kid. Why won’t you listen? I told you to come back! I yelled after you! You have never listened, though, have you? You never have tried to obey. Listen to your father! He just might -- just maybe -- see a whirlpool ahead that you just might – just maybe – ought not to swim into! Crimeny!” He started to swim back toward Mom and Brittney still muttering, “Of all the stupid, headstrong, arrogant . . .”

I lost track of the rest as he got farther ahead of me and the splash of the water sounded in my ears as I started to swim after him. I think I caught enough of the general drift to get his meaning, though.

I don’t know if it was because of the verbal lashing from my dad or because I knew I couldn’t ever get past that whirlpool unless I were in a boat, but I let go so completely of the dream of being the people in the boat I had just seen that I did not even look back. My heart said goodbye as it sunk deeper and deeper into the pit of my stomach and I swam closer and closer to the family I had left behind.

We continued forward then and eventually the tunnel began to lighten. In another few turns we saw the exit and pulled into the light. We found ourselves back at the carnival. The river came out of the tunnel ran through the carnival for a little ways and then entered the tunnel again on the other side. In front of the entrance, several swan-shaped boats were lined up waiting for riders. Over the front entrance to the tunnel, a sign read, “AFFIRMING WORTH – The Tunnel of Love.”

I looked up to see Ken on the artificial bank of the river offering his hand to my mother to help her out of the water. I climbed out, too, as did Dad and Brittney. Ken handed us all towels. I didn’t know if I should be grateful to him for the towels or angry at him. He must be responsible somehow for us falling and spending so much time in the water. I settled on not yelling at him but not thanking him, either while I accepted the towel and started drying off.

“How was your swim?” Ken asked cheerfully. I glared at him. My dad did, too. At least we agreed on something.


“Why couldn’t we get on the boats, Ken?” Brittney asked. She didn’t sound mad, like the rest of us. Why were kids so accepting of things?

Ken looked surprised. “Well, dear Brittney, who do you think the Tunnel of Love is for?”
Brittney didn’t even take time to think. “For people who love each other!” she exclaimed.

“That’s right,” Ken said sadly.

Brittney looked at him in confusion. “But we do love each other!” she insisted.

“Do you?” Ken asked. Then he turned and looked at Dad and at Mom and then at me.

“How do you show each other?”

There was silence. None of us could think of anything, of course.

Ken turned to me. “Do you love your Dad?”

I blinked in surprise. This wasn’t about me. I wasn’t in the wrong. I was the victim here. Couldn’t he see how my life had been poisoned – sabotaged – by the anger of my father? It was my dad who needed to show love to me! -- If he even did. What difference did it make at all about my tortured feelings? Ken continued to look at me, waiting for an answer.

I looked down and mumbled, “Of course I love my dad.”

“When was the last time you told him?”

I hesitated and then admitted, “I don’t know.”

“Do you think it’s important?”

“Yes.” Of course.

“Then don’t you think you’d better find a way to express your love? In fact, don’t you think that you should find a way to express it in everything you say to your dad?”

I remembered the family I had seen disappear on the swan boat. I knew how badly I wanted a family like that. What Ken was suggesting seemed like the kind of thing that might get me just the kind of family that I wanted. I looked up at Ken and nodded. I didn’t say anything, but in my heart I resolved to commit myself to show love everytime I talked to my dad -- or my mom or Brittney.

Ken smiled at me. “Good boy,” he said. Then he turned to look at the rest of my family. “I could ask each of you the same questions, couldn’t I? If you care about each other, and I can tell that you do, don’t you think you had better find a way to communicate that to one another?”

“Now, Tom,” Ken said to me confidentially, “maybe you should try your Integrity again coupled with Affirming Worth.”

I looked at him in total confusion. But then I remembered what I had said in the house of mirrors that had made us fall into the water of the tunnel of love and I knew what he meant. I didn’t know if I could do it, though. Could you tell a person that you loved them and that you were angry at them and have them believe you?

I decided if I was going to keep my resolution, I had better give it a try. “Mom,” I started. “I’m sorry I hurt your feelings in the house of mirrors. It’s because I love you and because you mean so much to me that it bothers me when Dad yells at you.” I glanced at Dad. His face hardened but he didn’t stop me. “I wish you could stand up to Dad so that it would stop, but I know that it’s hard.”

Mom smiled sadly at me and came over to give me a hug.

“Brittney,” I said turning to my sister. “I owe you an apology, too. It is very hard for me to see how Dad loves you and sometimes it makes me angry enough to wish terrible things. But, that’s not how I really feel. I love you, Britt, and I am so glad that you were born. I know,” I paused for a second wondering how honest I should be. Would it backfire and hurt me someday? I plunged on anyway, “I know that I’m lucky to have you.”

Brittney barreled into my arms and squeezed me so hard that I had to laugh and pry her loose. I marveled because I thought I would feel weak and foolish, but in all honesty (I smiled at the word) I had never felt stronger – more full of power – than I did at that moment. Right then I felt that all things really were possible.