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Ada was the only one to know. At least, at the start she thought she was. Deep down, she hoped she also could be completely clueless about the whole matter. For weeks now, whenever the thought came to her mind, she'd wish she was able to go back in time and erase the knowledge from her mind.
Sadly, she couldn't. No more than she couldn’t help him through this. She would often catch herself thinking back to that ungodly day when Tommy tried to end his life.
She helped him up, told their family he was feeling ill and needed rest. Ada didn't let Arthur help him to his room. With a lot of effort on her part, she got Tommy to bed and held his hand. Keept trying to talk to him, make it make sense.
As far as she could tell, things were fine, weren't they? Arthur kept booming about business, John had a new kid on the way they were able to help pay for, Ada herself had been able to wear dresses she could only dream of as a child. The family had come a long way from those desperate days when they couldn't afford to eat. All of that, much because of Tommy's efforts.
So why had Tommy tried to leave now?
She couldn't make him talk. She wanted to take him to a hospital to heal physically, but any doctor in Birmingham would end up telling her brothers about Tommy's attempt and, somehow, she felt that it would be best for everyone if they didn't know.
Despite not being the best at nursing, much to her brother's mockery, she did help him through it. Tended to him as much as she could. But after their mom's passing, she was deeply aware that healing the body was a far cry from making things better when the sickness was of the mind.
Days after he was better and could get up, he went back to work like nothing had happened. Arthur and John seemed strange whenever around him, but nobody said a thing about the long period of silence and bedrest Tommy had.
Maybe that wasn't the right thing to do, but Ada was desperate to push Tommy away from the same fate that their mom had. That's why he was now being treated in a new hospice in another town.
Far from Birmingham, there would be no news about his condition. She paid good money to make sure of it.
Besides the discretion, she took him there specifically because there was a promise of a more humane treatment, so she thought maybe he would be safer. Horror stories haunted her of people who had put their family in places like that, only for them to turn into empty shells, malnourished and weak, deep wounds covering their bodies from both mistreatment and neglect.
Ada put up her savings to make sure they knew he wasn't someone who's family didn't care about. That the man in front of them wouldn't be forgotten or left to rot. If any scratch appeared on Tommy, she'd tell everything and have Arthur and John's rage aimed at the hospice.
She knew many would take their loved ones to those sorts of places in hope they disappeared. Ada didn't want that, in fact, she took him there because, for a while now, even before the "accident", it felt like he was disappearing already. To Ada, this could be the chance to bring back her brother the way he used to be.
At home, whenever his name was mentioned someone would bring up he was spending time with uncle Charlie. From the day she took him there, that’s what they kept saying.
Tommy needed some serious help and they hoped he would get better. That's why it was always followed by "he'll be back soon enough."
It became the family’s unspoken rule, it was how they were dealing with it.
He’ll be back soon enough.
So that’s what’s so important about not letting word of this get out. It would affect business and Tommy would surely think less of himself for it and she didn't dare be the one to add to his shame.
Funny enough, Ada hadn't been the one who came up with the “uncle Charlie” excuse.
One of them made it up for whatever reason and she was grateful for that weight of her shoulders since everything else she did by herself.
Found the place, scheduled an appointment, tricked him into going and had him committed.
Every single coin that she spent was hers too. At the time, she believed neither John, nor Arthur —or even Polly— would ever know about this, so she couldn't have them trace a single shilling missing from the books.
Was she proud? No. She was desperate.
She went to visit him once. Took her a long time to gather the courage to see him for the first time. In the end, it wasn’t courage that got her in front of his asylum bedsit. It was fear of what he could have been going through while family wasn’t near.
In her head, she believed that just by looking at him she would be able to tell if he was better and being well taken care of.
During his signing in, she didn't give them his real name. There were people who would pay a high price to be alerted of a Shelby being in a hospital or worse, a place like this. So she put up his name as Thomas Green.
He had lost weight. That was the first thing she noticed. He reminded her way less of the man that had basically raised her and John and much more the boy she grew up with.
She took his arms and looked at them, making sure there were no bruises or wounds. No scars other than the ones he arrived with. She made him undress to check too and it was a cold feeling in her chest when he didn't even fight her about it.
Her big brother wasn’t compliant. Now, he was as obedient and passive as his horses.
After seeing he hadn’t been beaten, she had to help him get dressed too. He stumbled and his hands shook. The buttons were far beyond his capabilities now.
"Please get well, brother." She hugged him as tight as she could. "Get well, Tommy, get well and come back home."
She didn't let go. Couldn't. Ada doesn't know how long it took for him to hug her back, but eventually he did. Slow and shaky as everything else he attempted since her arrival. She started crying almost immediately.
He didn’t say a single word during the whole visit.
Next time she went, she took him things to eat and to read. He'd always been a fussy eater as a kid. As a grown up, he had periods where he would eat like a normal man and then there were times he would eat less than a bird. Small peckings and nibbles at all their meals, but not enough. Not even close.
Her fear was that the weight loss she witnessed was the result of this behaviour, not a lack of food being offered to him. If the staff had been remiss, had mistreated him in some form, she could do something about it, could hurt them back and could take him home to make things better. If this was Tommy not eating because he refused to until it got to the point that any stranger could tell he was sickly… Then she could help him no more than when he was home.
Tommy was pallid. Still.
They had him sat on a chair, but he wouldn’t even hold up his own weight. His torso was half thrown over a desk to the side. His hair was uncombed and his clothes torn.
She hurried to talk to his doctor. Ask what was being done to her brother.
"He had to be calmed down." Sadly she knew that it was likely true. His temper wasn't the easiest. Never had been.
“So the drugs are keeping him slow, but it’s good for his condition. It calms the nerves. Stops him from violent outbursts.”
“Stop giving him so much. Just enough.” She bit the flesh of her thumb. “When I brought him here he was badly, but he wasn’t slumped like that.”
“He gets aggressive-”
“Tommy’s as skinny as a twig! Surely your men can manage to-”
“He hurts himself.“
She was a Shelby. She wouldn't let a single tear form in front of this man. She did her best stare, took her wallet and threw all her money on the table.
“Find a way. He has to get better, we want him back.”
Before leaving, Ada headed back inside his room. Put the books in front of him, talked to him, though he wouldn’t answer and even pushed some food past his lips.
“Tom, I’m sorry this is happening. I’ve talked to the doctor, you’ll get out of this, okay?” She wiped his face, combed his hair and moved him slowly to the bed, where he could lay without looking like an invalid.
She cried all the way back home. How could this be? How could Tommy do this to them?
The talk with the doctor made her arrive late at home. The lights were off when she got to the living room and she was partially relieved for it.
She took off her coat, but a shadow appeared from the doorway.
“Ada,” there was the hard sound of the glass hitting wood. “How’s ’e?”
Before she could even process the question, Ada let out something between a sob and a gasp. She looked at Arthur and an intelligible stream of words came out of her mouth.
Her hands flew to her face and she didn't manage to hide anything.
Anything
“Oh, Arthur, he's so skinny, so weak” she took a few steps towards her bigger brother.
“I don't know what’s going on, they say he's not better and they are trying, but every time I go there, he's smaller and weaker.”
She feared the day she'd get there and find a corpse.
He didn't ask her where he was. Part of her was crushed by it. If he asked, maybe one day he would also ask her to take him there, then maybe she wouldn't have to go by herself and be the only one to see Tommy like that.
“Miss green?” the nurse called and Ada stepped up. She held a basket full of treats and some other items to try and get her brother back.
Before heading inside, she peered through the small window on the door. Last time she flinched at his sight and Tommy noticed it. She wouldn't make the same.mistake twice, so her plan was to see him before entering and she would not be surprised.
This time, Tommy was tied up to the bed.
Thick leather straps held him down by his ankles and wrists.
They did that to mum once.
No,
she can’t let them.
“This is supposed to be more humane! What is humane about that? he can't move.”
She turned to the nurse beside her.
“We only restrained him this morning. He fought with another patient, then when we put him back into the room he wouldn't calm down.”
“He's calm now! Get him free!”
Ada stayed out of the room while the nurse fetched help to drop the heavy wristlets.
Tommy would feel better if he didn't know she saw him like that.
They left him sitting on the chair by the window. It was a beautiful day out, but his eyes kept to the floor.
“Tommy?“
He let out a deep breath, his shoulders dropped even more.
“Did they hurt you, brother?”
“Tell me if they did.”
“Nobody hurts me.”
Those were the first words he said to her ever since she forced him into this building.
Her eyes overflowed with tears and she approached, set the basket at his feet and knelt in front of him, holding his hands.
“Tell me if they do, okay? They aren't supposed to. They have to help you.”
Without another word, he dropped her hand to pick up the box of smokes next to him
She watched his slow movements and the light exposed his wrist. bruised and swollen.
Maybe she was wrong about bringing him here. As unsettling as it was to see him restrained, she could only ever imagine what he could have felt while tied so roughly to the hard bed.
“Tommy?”
“There is a man here.” He struck a match and lit his cigarette.
“A Mr. Topher. Fair man, though he talks endlessly.”
She nodded, eyebrows knitted together, focused on each word.
“His wife is at home, raising five kids.” He puffed out some smoke, looking at nothing in particular. ”And he is willing to pay us a decent amount to keep them safe.”
Fine. If this is what it takes for him to talk to her, fine!
“Right, i'll talk to Arthur-”
“Talk to Polly”
“Polly?”
“She'll handle this better. Women's business.”
“Right. I will.”
She waited, wanted to see if he would talk more. His voice was raspy and it was painful to hear, but it was better than the endless silence she expected.
When he said nothing else, she reached for the basket.
As she presumed, she entered the room and found her brother even smaller than the previous time, if that was even possible.
“I figure this place's food is shit. Can't imagine you're enjoying boiled cabbage, so here,” she pulled it nearer with pretend annoyance, forcing her voice not to sound like a plea. “This is so you can have some good meals while I'm not here.”
He didn't look at her or at the basket, so she picked up a tin which she had filled with today's breakfast.
Polly herself did it, so Tommy couldn’t complain Ada’s cooking was worse than torture.
She pulled his hand, gut turning when she felt his pain reflex at her light grip on his wrists.
“Sorry,” she placed the tin in his slack palm.
“There's also biscuits, jam, some bread, I've brought fresh fruits," she rummaged through the basket. “Also got you a better blanket-”
“Ada?”
She looked up at him.
“Sign the papers. Get me out.”
She looked at his hand holding the tin, but there was no attempt at eating. Hadn’t even opened it.
His eyes looked to the floor, empty. The cigarette was burning his finger, but he didn't bother tossing it.
Tom’s hollow, but the gears are turning.
Look to be turning.
Had he been bad before? Hiding it from them- from her?
He was making deals here.
Working, even still empty. If she didn’t know better, she’d think he was fine, just thinking, busy.
She left the basket near him.
“Tommy, please.” She took what was left of the cigarette from his hand, hissing at the heat as she threw it on the floor.
“We all want you to come back,”
“Sign the papers.”
His words held no weight. He spoke with no emotion, no care and she could see it now.
The trick was gone, the curtains completely lifted and now she couldn’t see her funny brother anymore.
If she took him back, she would bitterly regret it.
She hugged him again. Felt the bones on his back, the cold of his skin and the lingering smell of blood hidden behind his clothes.
This has to work. Has to. If he doesn’t get better, she doesn’t know what she could do.
“You'll come home when you're whole, Tommy. Not a moment before.” She kissed his temple. Wasn’t her habit. Mum used to do it to them and she hoped it would at least remind him of happier times.
“I know this will get better.”
He rested his forehead on her shoulder.
“There is no better, Ada.”
She cried and cried.
Tommy held her steady and let her calm down.
When the nurse came by to force her out, Ada got up with all the poise of a respectful woman.
“I'll be back next week, Tom.”
He still hadn't looked at her.
At home, she cleaned his bedroom. Removed dust and made his bed. It had all been left just as it had been the day she took him.
She wanted it ready for his return.
It had been seven weeks. How things could change so much in a couple of months was beyond her, but they did.
The woman Tommy told them to help became a widow. Mr. Topher died in the asylum and whatever danger loomed over her was gone.
She gave them three horses on top of the agreed payment. Ada asked why, but she said her late husband ordered and she wouldn't blemish his name by not delivering on his promises.
Ada left the house, heart pounding in her chest. During her last visit, the doctor said Tommy was ready, so she was going there to pick him up.
She dressed him in the same clothes he wore when he was admitted. They smelled of camphor and were drastically bigger on him. They didn't look like her brother's clothes anymore.
And Tommy didn’t look like her brother either.
His hair was covering his eyes and his beard was the longest she’s ever seen. If she hadn’t witnessed him changing week by week, she wouldn’t believe that was her brother.
Before heading home, she took him to the closest barber and he got a good shave and trim. They cut and cleaned his nails and, despite not smiling, she believed with all her heart he was likely feeling better just by the grooming.
Rough nurses and cheap hospital soap couldn’t compare to a good hot towel to the face and some nice perfume covering the smell of the asylum that still clung to him.
To her surprise, when they entered their house, Arthur and John were waiting for him. They took him upstairs, to the bedroom Ada had cleaned in the morning.
She half expected them to say something. None of her brothers were ever quiet, but they didn't.
They didn't ask anything to either Ada or Tommy. They didn't talk business with him or even bothered to pretend they didn't know what happened.
She didn’t feel so alone anymore, though. Somehow they knew it all along, just didn’t talk to her. Didn’t ask. Never.
Ada went upstairs and Tommy had been bathed and dressed in comfortable clothes. The old suit had been discarded to the floor and Ada could wager to bet that Polly would likely donate it to someone.
Hell, Ada would burn them all herself, if only to never see Tommy in them again.
Polly's heels clipped nearby and suddenly she was next to Ada, holding a bowl of oatmeal thinned with milk that surely had a generous dose of brandy.
It would be good for his nerves.
For the next fortnight, they all kept him full of malt extract and the nerve pills he was prescribed.
He didn’t leave his bedroom. Not for a second.
She could see he was better, really, she could. He went back to eating by himself, sometimes she’d enter his room and he was reading.
First time she saw him out of the bedroom, she stumbled into him sitting on the floor with Finn…
Somehow their youngest found a way to get him voluntarily out just to play pretend with their old wooden horses.
Lord knows what they did to him in that building. The doctor wouldn't tell her, said that it was experimental, so they refused to divulge it.
Whatever treatment it was, it wasn’t humane. They surely had tied him down many more times since she told them to stop. The marks around his wrists and ankles were deep and still red, even after three weeks of Polly rubbing balm on them.
Ada felt doubt and guilty every time she caught a glimpse of them.
All the nights she prayed she made the right decision, that he would be back, not just home, but how he used to.
Her brother who smiled, joked, made funny voices, jumped on Arthur’s back and shouted obscenities, roughhouse in the morning and flirt with the girls two streets over by the evening.
The last part of the treatment he could do at home. They just had to keep him full, warm and make sure he took the tonic they gave him.
Wasn't easy to trust. A secret red liquid in a bottle that didn't even have a label. She gave him a spoonful after every meal and, Whatever it was, they did it. They forced him to take it day after day.
During the nights, he’d cry, so someone was always with him. John stopped him from reaching for a gun once.
Twice, Arthur helped him into the bath, only to shout for Polly because he found a deep gash on his tight. Ada rummaged through his whole bedroom, trying to figure out if he had sneaked in a knife, but as it was, he smashed an empty glass and made do with a big piece of shard.
There were few jokes and smiles during that time. But he was slowly thickening up.
She thought this was it. That was Tom now. Scary and scared, quiet and loud.
They all kept him inside, didn't let anyone see him while the treatment ran its course. Polly had faith in it, said it would work, but Ada couldn’t thrust faith this time. She had to see him get better with her own eyes.
It was worth it. It had been long and tiresome, but slowly, Tommy was with them again.
First time she saw change was the day he asked Ada about Shadow. Charlie’s new horse that Tommy had been training just before he…
Just before he did what he did.
Once he was back, the first thing he did was make sure that the few records of his 'vacation' vanished.
And just two years later, when Tommy left for the war, Ada wondered how much longer he'd stay away this time.
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