70 Dougie's POV
"Buzz, shhh, shhh, it's okay, it's alright." I tried desperately to calm the baby down, but he would not stop crying. Crying and reaching out the door, towards his dad, his dad who sounded like he was crying in agony in the other room. The tiny boy was struggling in my arms, desperately wanting to run to his dad, but I couldn't let him. Not like this, not right now.
He couldn't see Tom in distress, he couldn't be witness to whatever Tom was doing in the kitchen. He wasn't... Buzz was only a baby, he was only eighteen months old, he'd seen enough of his dad being unwell, had heard his mother beating him down constantly, had been there for all of Tom's therapy sessions. He couldn't witness Tom crying too, he couldn't.
He wouldn't understand, and I didn't want him to be confused, or scared by it. None of us wanted him to witness it at all. But how could we keep on keeping them apart? How could we stop Buzz from seeing his dad so damn often? He needed Tom, but Tom wasn't capable of looking after his son right now. He wasn't well, he needed to get better, or at least to get his head on straighter than it was right now, before he could possibly even start to look after Buzz.
But damn it I wanted this tiny, innocent child to stop crying! I wanted him to stop crying, and for me to not be the one who always had to hold him back like this! I didn't want to separate father and son, I didn't want to be the bad guy in this! I didn't want to have to always be calming Buzz down while his father cried in the other room, I couldn't... I couldn't handle that kind of pressure. I wasn't, I couldn't... it was just so hard, and I wasn't able to do it, not for much longer, not like this, not so often.
It took over an hour for Tom to calm down, but Buzz didn't calm, not until he saw his dad again. I let him run over to him and cling on with all of his toddler strength, while Tom held back loosely, like he still wasn't in the room. He looked like he was in shock still, not even twitching at the constant sound of Buzz saying 'Dada' over and over, tiny baby fists clinging to his shirt and hair.
It even took us prompting him to get him to take Buzz upstairs for his bath before bedtime. Tom was so out of it, in so much shock, he was barely responding anymore. And I didn't understand... I mean I did understand, he was coming to terms with what his wife did to him, but I mean, I didn't understand how to help, how to snap him out, how to get him to start to move on. I just wanted him to move on, to be happy again. This wasn't right. None of this was right.
How did it get to this? How did we get here? How did... why did Tom's wife have to do this? Why couldn't she have been kind and loving? Why couldn't she have been a normal person, and one who didn't leave? Why didn't we pick up that something was wrong from the start? Why didn't we pay attention? Why did nobody notice anything? We should have noticed, we should have noticed.
I couldn't believe we didn't notice.
"We can't, we can't blame ourselves Dougie, she was good, she covered her tracks well. A-And, I mean, Tom wasn't... there weren't any physical marks, we couldn't have known." Harry was saying, stroking my back that night.
"We should have known." We should have, we really, really should have.
"I know, but how could we? We didn't... there was nothing to suspect." Harry tried to sound like he believed that, it didn't work.
"We could have paid attention! It was... we should have seen that Tom wasn't okay! We should have seen that he didn't play with his own son, that, that he was quieter than usual! We should have noticed that there's barely any photos of him around the house, but there's hundreds of her and Buzz! But we didn't! We didn't notice a thing! And now Tom's suffering by himself and he is barely with us anymore and won't stop crying! And Buzz won't stop crying and I can't! I just can't anymore! There's so much, there's so much pain and I can't deal with it anymore!" the words came bursting out, unable to stop coming. And with the words, came tears.
"We should have noticed Harry, we should have noticed!" I sobbed into my husband's chest, wishing we could go back in time and do something to stop all this happening.