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Tom Houston keeps a painting above his sink in lieu of a mirror. (There’s still a mirror in the main bathroom downstairs for Tim, but above Tom’s sink, there’s nothing).
He can’t look in a mirror anymore without seeing the absence of Jane. Whenever Tom looked in a mirror when Jane was alive, she was there: brushing her teeth next to him, curling her hair while he shaved, arms around him while he washed his hands. She was there
And now she’s gone. Replaced with blank tiles and a shelf that contains too few bottles of shampoo.
The painting that hangs above the mirror now is of a hill, dotted with trees. There’s no Jane in it (he tried hanging up a picture of her at first but just looking at it made him nauseous—and when Tim had had to use Tom’s bathroom because the toilet in the other one wasn’t working he’d refused to leave his room until it was taken down), but there’s no Tom in it either. He’s not standing alone at a sink with blank tiles behind him. He could be anywhere.
—
Tom finds it hard to look at Tim these days. He, like Tom, is far too alone in the spaces he inhabits. He sits alone on the couch rather than laying with his head in his mom’s lap, he does his homework alone at the table with no one to help him, he stands alone at the bus stop every morning because Tom won’t—can’t—drive him to school.
Tom avoids Tim. He loves Tim, but he avoids him. Tim doesn’t need to see his father grieving. Tim doesn’t need to look at Tom and see how alone he is, he doesn’t need to see Tom the way Tom sees him.
It’s easier to try and get things for Tim—the remote control car, the tickle-me-wiggly. Easier to go somewhere else, to not see how alone he is. He’d move the world for Tim but he just can’t be near him.
Maybe if he surrounds Tim with things he won’t look so alone.
He wishes Tim didn’t look so alone.
—
When Tom came back from Iraq, he couldn’t look at himself in the mirror. He wasn’t Tom anymore. He was someone else. Someone who had killed people.
Before, he had laughed and told jokes and been generally happy. It certainly hadn’t been perfect but it had often been good.
Now he couldn’t even manage to smile.
By the time he met Jane, he had a fairly impressive beard and hair that nearly reached his shoulders (they use mirrors in barber’s shops too).
But he did meet Jane and she was funny and kind and a little neurotic—but hey, if you wrote a book about all the things wrong with him it’d be banned in most countries so he couldn’t judge—and somewhere along the way they fell in love.
The first time he stayed over at Jane’s place, the mirror on her bathroom wall caught him off guard and, standing in front of it, he began to doubt the whole relationship. The war had changed him, and was he really going to let that bleed into someone else, drag them down with him? (And if he’s being really honest, sometimes he thinks he wasn’t all that great before the war, that maybe his relationship with Becky Barnes ending was for the best because she was always so good and he never really had been).
He didn’t give up, in the end—he just kept his head down and focused on the sink as he brushed his teeth—but it was close.
And as time moved on, and he found himself getting ready in front of the same mirror as Jane most days of the week, it got easier.
Jane could be funny, hilarious even, and he would see himself smile, see himself laugh and think that maybe he wasn’t so disconnected from the person he used to be. He’d see himself next to Jane and think that if she were here he couldn’t be that bad after all. He put the mirrors in his own house back up, watched himself and Jane, and eventually Tim in them. Watched them being a family. Watched them being happy.
And then Jane died and now he can’t look at his reflection in a shop window without considering property damage.
—
When Tom wakes up from the hold the tickle-me-wiggly had on his head, he doesn’t recognise himself. He was ready to hurt a child, betray Becky, disregard the lives of however many other people are here (a boy died, a boy died and he just kept looking for the fucking doll?) just to get Tim a toy he’d never expressed any interest in.
What the fuck has he done?
He’s changed again. A change he wasn’t even noticing and maybe it wasn’t just Jane’s absence that stopped him from looking in mirrors. He’s someone else. He’s someone more cynical, less caring.
There’s a pool of water on the floor, showing his reflection. He can’t look at himself. God he doesn’t even want to live in his own skin anymore.
He doesn’t think he can stand being himself at all.
—
He hopes Tim isn’t worrying. Hopes this hasn’t made it onto the news. Tim doesn’t need to fear losing another parent.
Tim should be here with him. Or rather—because he could never put Tim in place this dangerous (there’s another kid in here, a kid he was willing to hurt)—he should be at home with Tim—and Emma and…Paul? Was that his name?
Tim shouldn’t be alone.
Tim shouldn’t have been alone after Jane’s death.
Tom should have been with Tim on the couch, Tom should have been helping Tim with his homework, Tom should have stood with Tim at the bus stop.
Tim shouldn’t have been alone after Jane died. Tom should have been with him.
—
They get out, somehow. And Tom isn’t alone anymore. He’s started something with Becky again—and sure, maybe that feels like a bit of a betrayal but Jane isn’t coming back; he has to be happy without her—and even if that doesn’t work out there are the others. There’s Emma and her not-boyfriend. There’s Lex and Hannah who seem like they need a parent—why else would they be trying to get to California?. There’s Tim. Tim who’s his son. Tim who deserves better from his father. Tim who he needs just as much as Tim needs him.
The glass of the mall’s windows isn’t completely destroyed yet and he can see himself in it, surrounded by people. And this time, he doesn’t look away.