11 Harry's POV
Tom must have sensed us watching him, because he turned round to look at the window. We all hurried to look busy, but it couldn't have fooled him for a second. We had been caught watching, and I dreaded to think how that was going to translate in Tom's mind. I had this terrible feeling that everything we did translated badly in his head, to what extent I didn't have a clue, but he certainly wasn't seeing our actions as helpful, or at least out of a place of care.
Out the corner of my eye, I saw Tom sigh and turn away, looking back at his son. From what I could tell, Buzz had given up on getting Tom involved, and was dejectedly bashing some toy or other against the floor. I couldn't exactly blame him for that. Though I wasn't sure if I could blame Tom either, there was something niggling at me, something wasn't quite right with this whole thing. I couldn't tell what it was, but something was definitely wrong with this whole thing.
Eventually, when we felt it was safe to go out, we ventured outside too. Dougie immediately started playing with Buzz, trying to make the boy laugh, and soon Buzz was giggling and running around the garden like a happy little boy. The sight made my heart swell with an unnamed feeling, just like it did every time I saw him play with a child like that. It made me wish to see Dougie with a child of our own one day. He was great with kids, and adored spending time with them. I did too, but Dougie was made for fatherhood in a lot of ways.
Tom didn't try to join in at all, instead stayed where he was in his little isolated section of garden. Even when Dougie called him over, he turned it down, remaining on the patio until it was time to give Buzz his dinner and get him off to bed. All of which Tom did by himself, insisting that he could do it. I tried to tell him that we didn't doubt that, but it fell on deaf ears, as it had done the past few days.
"This is not right." I spoke up after the sound of splashing water could be heard.
"He's going through the motions of parenting, he's not enjoying it like he used to." Danny replied, looking at the ceiling, like that would help.
"It's like he's on auto-pilot." It was the only way I could describe it. Tom just seemed to be on autopilot. He was doing what he had to, in terms of looking after Buzz, but he wasn't connecting. He was just doing it, because he had to. It was odd. Too odd for words really. I'd never seen him like this.
Even during Tom's 'down times' he hadn't been like this. He made an effort for Buzz; he always made an effort to make the kid happy. This wasn't him making an effort, this was him doing what was expected, while he looked longingly at his son, like he wanted to do more but something was stopping him.
And the behaviour carried on for days, there was no difference in Tom whatsoever. He was still going through everything on auto-pilot, doing what had to be done to look after Buzz and keeping the house running, but that was all. There was no spark of life in him anymore. It was almost like he was a robot. A robot trained to do certain tasks and that was it. And if we took one away to do it ourselves, he looked so lost and disappointed.
It didn't make sense; surely he'd be happy to have some of his workload taken from him during this tough time? Surely he would appreciate our help? But it seemed like he didn't. Everything we did made him look like we'd told him he was useless, like we had kicked him while he was already down, and none of us understood why. We tried helping out in different ways, tried cheering him up, tried giving him a break, but nothing did anything to change his mood. He was still absolutely flat and robotic. The only thing that seemed to put him at ease was leaving him to do whatever he needed to do.
But it didn't feel right to be doing that to him right now. His wife had just left him, he'd had a breakdown or something because of it, he wouldn't even play with his son. It wasn't right, none of this was right. This wasn't Tom, this wasn't normal; this wasn't okay in the slightest. None of this was okay, and none of it made sense. What I wouldn't give to have something to help all of this make sense.