“I can see that for you,” Tomas said, when Harry gave up that plain tidbit with no embellishment: i like learning. “You have a lot stored away. How about sharing it? D’you like that part?” He kept his voice carefully neutral, just curious, not wanting to put her on the defensive. “I like that part. A lot. That’s why I became I teacher, I guess, to get the chance to do that. Keep circulating the learning around. But I know that’s not everyone’s thing.”
His comment about Tess, her similarity to Harry, was a path that apparently Harry didn’t mind taking a jaunt down, and Tomas ran his tongue along his teeth for a moment before he spoke. “There’s the more obvious ways,” he said, “she was like you in how she looked and acted. Kind of mannish and abrupt with people. Especially people she thought were kinda stupid.” Tomas gave a sidelong smile. “But she also … my sister could be so giving, sometimes. In ways that were hard to figure out, if you weren’t used to her. We went through hell together holding hands and she was – she was a million times tougher then me, but she understood that we needed to do it together. She held a space for me next to her. So I wouldn’t have to go through it alone.”
Tomas dithered there, unsure if Harry would find this objectionable or not. “I wish we hadn’t grown apart at the end there,” he said. “She was pretty unyielding when it came to her worldview and I fell short. I disapproved of some of her choices but it was nothing near the way Tess could just … cut you dead. If she wanted to.”
And then Harry – Harry asked about flowers, and Tomas almost sobbed out a laugh, feeling faintly hysterical. Jesus christ, he was wound up. “I’ve wanted to grow flowers the whole time I’ve been running the farm,” he said. “Always. I love them. But I couldn’t keep them alive and there was always something else coming up. Something more practical, more important, something that would benefit more people. I never had time for my flowers.”
With that said, Tomas didn’t even need to verbally agree about the island doing its pulverizing. That was true whether he said it or not.
She was upset about John being gone, John not being there to raise Lily, and Tomas nodded. “He’ll always be her father,” he said, tentatively. “I didn’t get the chance to raise her. I have her now, is all, and I love her very much, Harry.” The question about what Lily liked seemed to sweeten the mood a bit, and so Tomas picked it up gratefully: “Birds. And cooking, and she’s incredibly clever with her hands, at crafting, y’know. She makes all sorts of little finework tools, needles and awls and the like. She loves languages and multiple words for things. As many words as she can collect. I think that appeals to her, finding connections.”
Tomas lingered there for a moment, on the tip of the thought, then committed to it. “Like you and John do, right? Biological linkages, taxonomy, interconnectedness. Sometimes I feel what would make Lily happiest is to find out that we’re all linked to each other like a peptide chain.”
Harry grumbled as Tommy asked her whether she liked the other side of the coin of learning, the joy of teaching others. Yes, no, she didn't know. Student, Hannah, she wasn't too bad to teach, but mostly Harry got her to do chores for her that Hannah thought were some deeper lessons instead of simply Harry trying to get her out of her hair as soon as possible. So, eloquently, Harry shrugged. "Sometimes," she admitted. "Depends on the student. I'm not... patient." If the person would listen to her, if they got things right the first time, she liked the intense attention that came from someone listening to your every word, gulping them down their gullet. She disliked repeating herself, holding their hand and stepping them through each and every motion. Not to say that Tommy was that sort of teacher, but she believed him when he told her that he found joy in sharing what he knew. It didn't surprise her. "Give us a fact then," she said, as if testing his teaching abilities.
Harry gave Tommy a look as he spoke about how she and Tess both had little tolerance for stupid people. Harry couldn't even refute it, or his boyish, teasing smile, because he was right. Harry hummed and looked away. It was all too close to home, how Tommy lured Harry out of her shell, his own intense bond with his sister that had fallen apart. How Tess had cut him dead... Wasn't that what Harry had done to John? Say the words she knew would hurt, sinking her teeth into it. Her vindictive, cruel enjoyment of seeing every mark hit its target. The rush of the argument hadn't been worth it in the end. She wondered if Tess felt the same.
"When we were out there..." Harry began, coming to a stop as she considered her words, what she wanted to say. She didn't have to say anything more, that was what most people hadn't figured out. She could stop talking any time she wanted. Harry swallowed her spittle, and then jutted her chin in the vague direction of the jungle. "Out there... there's nothing else to talk about but the past. Christ, we must have gone over the Christmas disaster of '38 a thousand times," Harry reminisced, shaking her head at the memory, and the memory of remembering it with John, laughing about the burnt chicken and flat pavlova, the impudent second cousin who had long overstayed her welcome.
Harry paused, squinting her eyes to hide any emotion that showed through in them, running her tongue along her teeth. "Do you know how we ended up here?" she rhetorically asked, given how few people she had shared it with. "I was broke John out of a detention camp. He was a conchie... conscientious objector." Harry pursed her lips together. "A stupid one. Got arrested at a protest." Maybe Harry was just as stupid breaking him out. John had let himself be arrested thinking it would be a big political statement, that it would embolden their cause. It hadn't, but his arrest had been the catalyst to everything that had followed. Harry spending time with his fiancee Maria, to knowing her intimately, to breaking John out of the camp and ending up here, and then all the way to Harry telling him about her and Maria in an explosive argument that lead to the two of them splitting up.
Harry sighed, uncomfortable with how much she had shared, the layers of hardened shell she had peeled back, letting Tommy peek at her vulnerable, soft heart. Even if all she had told him so far were unrelated vignettes, skirting the truth of it all. She could stop. She couldn't stop. "I pushed John away in the end... Should have told him..." Harry trailed off, swallowing hard and praying that Tommy wouldn't see the tears gathering at her lashes. "Tess... she'll miss you," Harry said, speaking for Tess, using Tess to speak for herself. "She'll regret cutting you down."
Harry found herself laughing along with Tommy, as the conversation shifted to flowers. Flowers were so innocent in comparison. And as if the parallels between Tommy and John couldn't grow any stronger, Tommy loved flowers. Of course he would do. Harry gave him a tight lipped smile, an approving nod of her head. He never had the time for flowers, running the farm took too much from him. "I have time," Harry offered, even though she hated the beach, even though she acted like she was going to uproot herself and leave at any moment, the slightest provocation. She knew that wasn't true, that despite her nature she had settled here, for now.
One of the reasons for her change of heart had been Lily, John's daughter. Tommy soothed some of her ire by stating that John was her father. That put her in a good mood to listen to his own justification for his title. It didn't set entirely level with Harry, but it was close enough to pass by without further comment beyond a south of neutral grunt. He loved Lily, it was more than Harry could claim. Her love for Lily was filtered through her love for John, and Sisco said it was alright, that it would take time, but she still felt like the imposter aunt while madly defensive of John's role.
She was grateful then that Tommy plainly told her what Lily liked, and Harry repeated each fact in her brain, tucked them away safely. The bit about languages made her smile. And Tommy was correct in guessing it in one. "John loved taxonomy, all that Latin and Greek," Harry said, shaking her head side to side. "You think that's hereditary?"