Chapter 5
DEREK WAS doing all the talking, and he hoped Harm didn’t think him strange.
Yes, Harm wasn’t able, but he communicated in other ways.
His hands were very expressive, and those eyes.
Harm could tell stories with them. In fact, he probably was, but Derek didn’t understand them…
at least not yet. He hoped to, sometime.
“Tell me about your sister. What is she like?”
Their server came to the table to take their orders. Harm pointed to what he wanted. The server asked questions and didn’t seem at all fazed that Harm nodded or shook his head to answer. One thing was for sure, they trained their staff very well. Once he left, Harm tapped his note.
“Suzanne…. Let me see. She’s a real pain in the butt, and I love her for it.
She used to get us both in trouble, and every time she’d sign and act confused to get us out of it.
Worked every damned time too. Never did for just me, though.
” Derek smiled and got one in return. He could get lost in one of Harm’s smiles.
“I told you that she’s deaf and lives in Rochester because there’s a large community there.
She’s a dentist with quite a few friends, and patients who love her.
At the moment she’s dating a guy who can hear. ” He made a scandalized face.
“I don’t get it,” Harm wrote. “I’m having dinner with a guy who can talk.”
“Suzanne explained it to me. There are deaf people, and then there are Deaf people with a capital D. The capital D people think that if Suzanne marries a hearing person, then she’s giving up part of deaf culture.
Part of her deafness. There is a specific culture and community within the deaf, and there are those who want to protect that.
I don’t blame them, and they have the right to their opinion.
But Suzanne feels that it’s her life and she’ll do what she wants to make herself happy.
And apparently this hearing boyfriend might be the person.
She says he treats her well and is taking signing classes so he can better communicate with her. ”
“Is she older?”
“By two years, and she never lets me forget it. Though there are times when I worry for her. I want her to be happy and I miss her, and I don’t want someone to hurt her.” He growled, and Harm chuckled. He loved that sound.
“And you?”
Derek rolled his eyes. “I’m boring compared to Suzanne. She’s fearless when it comes to just about anything. She’s jumped out of planes, bungee jumped off bridges. You name it, she’s done it. Nothing scares her. Now me, I’m the one who plays it safe. I’m a librarian, after all.”
“You weren’t afraid of me when everyone else was,” Harm wrote, and Derek felt his cheeks color.
“I hate that you were treated that way. I had a talk with the staff about how we all acted based on looks. It was a tough conversation, but we have a lot of different people come through our doors, and I reminded everyone that we were expected to be professional and courteous to everyone, and that meant we didn’t hide in the back room. ”
Harm put his head down as he wrote. “What if I had been as bad as they feared?”
Derek knew that answer. “Then it’s up to me to take the appropriate action.
If you were a real threat, then I’d call for help.
And it’s happened before. I had a patron last year who became infatuated, you might say.
He got so that he knew my schedule and would come in every time I worked.
William, William Lassater, that was his last name.
He started putting flowers on the desk and talking to me for hours.
I wasn’t getting my work done and I needed a way to get him to leave me alone, but he refused to take any sort of hint. ”
Harm’s eyes were huge. “What did you do?” Derek didn’t need for him to write that down.
“I told him that I wasn’t interested, and the next flowers he brought were returned.
I was too busy to speak to him when he came in.
Sometimes Connie ran interference, but in the end I told him that I wasn’t interested and asked him to leave me alone.
He didn’t for a while, but now he pretty much stays away.
I see him in town sometimes, and he always gives me the creeps.
He doesn’t come into the library anymore.
But sometimes when I go out for dinner, he’ll be at the same restaurant again. I never speak to him, but….”
“Do you think he watches you?” Harm asked, his handwriting becoming rougher.
“I think he has to, which freaks me out. But not all the time. Like if I see him at the grocery store, then I’ll see him around for a while, but then he goes away again.
I’m not sure what his deal is, but I wish he would just leave me alone.
” Not that he wanted to be talking about his mini-stalker as he and Harm were having dinner.
“What about you? Did you like being in the Army?”
Harm hesitated and got a new page and began to write.
Once he was done, he handed it Derek. “I did, actually. I had wonderful foster parents, who are still in my life, but I had to make my own way after high school, and the service was the one way I knew where I could fit in. I talk to Joe and Larry all the time.”
“That’s good. You hear horror stories about how some people are treated.”
Harm began writing again. “I had two bad homes. They either ignored me or thought I was a live-in maid. It was really bad. But then Joe and Larry took me in. They were loving, and tough when they needed to be. But even when I was bad, they stood by me.” Harm paused and then wrote some more.
“We went on family vacations together and did things that real families did.”
“Did they adopt you?” Derek asked.
Harm shook his head. “Larry has some health issues. He had to retire early. They told me they were afraid that if they tried to adopt, it was possible that Larry’s health might keep that from happening and they might take me away.
So they didn’t rock the boat. I called them Pops and Papa.
I still do. They live in Arizona now, and in a few months, we’ll get together for a cruise. ”
“That sounds awesome.” Speaking about parents made Derek miss his own.
“It’s just Suzanne and me now. My parents are both gone.
Mom from cancer, and I swear Dad died of a broken heart.
He passed six months after her from a chronic heart condition.
” Derek was relieved when their server brought their food, and he thought for a minute about how he was going to change the subject.
Harm put a hand on Derek’s, and their gazes met over the table.
In an instant, without a single word, Harm told him that he understood that loss.
Of course he did. He was a kid when he lost his parents.
At least Derek had been an adult, and while the loss hurt deeply, he had his own life to return to. “I’m okay. I just miss them sometimes.”
Harm shifted in his seat and pulled out his wallet. He opened it and showed Derek a picture. It was in color, small, with a man, a woman, and what had to be Harm, already tall.
“Is that your mom and dad with you?” He nodded, and Harm put away his wallet. “Do you have many pictures of them?” Harm raised his fingers. “A few?” He got another nod. “Let’s talk about something else. What do you do for fun besides read?”
Harm wrote a list. “I used to hunt with my dad, and we went fishing. Now I don’t know. I don’t know what happened to any of my family’s things. I suppose they were sold or….” He shrugged. “I’d like some of my dad’s fishing gear.”
“The LeTort is great for fishing. I like to sit there and just watch the water. I have some gear if you’d like to go.
” And just like that, there was that smile again.
“Fishing is allowed all year long, but I catch and release. I never keep anything I catch there. I want the fish to be able to reproduce and make more fish for the future.”
Harm nodded and pointed to himself as if to say, me too. “When can we go?” Harm wrote, and Derek mentally checked his calendar.
“Maybe next Saturday or Sunday. Just stop in and let me know your new work schedule. It’s a little chilly this time of the year, but the LeTort is always about the same temperature so the fish are active almost all year long.
I know some of the very best spots where the fish hide.
” And he didn’t reveal his secrets to just anyone.
“That would be nice,” Harm wrote and added a smiley face.
“Cool. I haven’t had anyone to fish with in quite a while.
” He had all the gear, but he hadn’t been out fishing since his dad died.
It was something they did together, and it hadn’t felt right after he passed.
But maybe he’d had the wrong attitude about it all along.
Maybe what he’d needed to do was continue the things they did together rather than shying away from them. “I have the gear.”
“Was it you and your dad?” Harm asked.
“Yes. Dad and I had plenty of gear and multiple tackle boxes. Before he died, Dad had a fishing boat, and we used to take it out on weekends. Suzanne would come with us, Mom would sometimes too, and they’d bring books.
It was always a quiet time when it was just Dad and me unless the others came along.
” He missed those hours of quiet. You knew you were comfortable with someone when you could spend hours together and not talk.
That was something he truly missed, that sort of comfortability with someone else.
The only person he had ever had it with was his dad.