Chapter Text
“Ada, up you get! It’s nearly 9 o’clock. You’ve no business sleeping in this late.” Polly’s shrill voice shook her out of her delightful dreams into her repugnant reality.
By the time Ada had finished putting on her stockings, she couldn’t remember what her dream had been about. All that remained in her memory was a vague recollection of soft laughter, warm hands, and the unparalleled beauty of peace and quiet.
“Ada! Are you still not up? Hurry along!”
Peace and quiet. Two things, amongst many others, that her household lacked. Ada hurried along, combing her ear-length hair briskly while questioning how she had slept in this late. Normally, Ada, along with Aunt Polly, would wake at seven and throw some eggs in a pan and her brothers would walk in one by one, with varying degrees of reluctance. It was always either Arthur or John who’d arrive last and that depended on who had had the most to drink the night before. Tommy’s entrance was more strategic. He would enter just late enough to not have to help out with breakfast and just early enough to present himself as disciplined to Polly. Such tricks may work on their aunt, but they never worked on Ada.
Ada left her bedroom and ran down the stairs just in time for Polly to call her for the third time. She stepped into the kitchen cautiously, getting in hot water with Pollyana in the morning never fared well for anyone. Her aunt’s back was turned to her, so she turned to Thomas, who was sipping his tea with one hand and holding a newspaper in the other (“Can’t sit idly for one second that one,” her aunt had groused many a time), and raised her eyebrows. He slowly set the teacup down on the saucer and mimed chopping his head off. Ada put her hands behind her back, swung on her heels nervously, and finally cleared her throat. To say her aunt performed a half-decent pirouette in order to look at Ada wouldn’t even be an exaggeration.
“Ada! Do you know how many times I’ve called for you? Do you know what time it is? What’s gotten into you lately?” Her aunt’s scolding echoed throughout the house, inevitably informing her other brothers of her great blunder.
Three times , nearly nine , and I don’t know were the answers to the questions her aunt rapidly fired at her. However, just as her school teachers, Aunt Polly was not asking in search of a reply, rather in order to prove a point. The point being that Ada had woken up late for the fifth time in three weeks, which might not have meant much to anyone else, but in the Shelby clan, Ada sleeping in meant quite a lot. She had always been the first up, even as a young child. Her aunt would often regale them with stories of Ada’s troublesome ways as a tot, how she always kept her mother up to the wee hours of the morning because she refused to sleep.
Sleeping in alone was not cause for her aunt’s obvious concern (Polly resorting to rhetorical questions meant she was indeed more worried than she otherwise let on). Ada knew she had been worryingly distant and absentminded the last month or so, unusual because she was normally so energetic and flighty. Tommy was eyeing her from over the newspaper, a small furrow between his thin eyebrows. Her hollow cheeks, sickly pallor and shaky demeanour was enough to make anyone worry, it seemed, even Thomas Shelby.
Pol’s tirade got cut off by the arrival of Arthur and John, both looking oddly high-spirited. They bustled in rowdily, bumping into Ada, who was still standing dumbly in the doorway, and roughly ruffled her hair one by one. She yelped and tried to get away, but the damage was done. Hair sticking out in all the odd directions, Ada wondered how she looked now. Probably like one of ‘em homeless women begging in the corners of every street in Birmingham.
“Sleeping beauty’s finally up, ey?” Arthur spoke with a faux-serious voice, as if pretending to deliver bad news.
“Decided to grace us with your presence, Your Royal Highness?” Commented John, mockingly. He had recently turned eighteen, and along with his flight to adulthood came a decreased, yet still present idolization of his older brothers, (mostly Arthur since John didn’t really understand Tommy. Nobody did, not even Polly).
Ada’s traitorous cheeks blushed red of their own accord, and she snapped harshly, “Shut up!”
They both raised their eyebrows, and then John continued with the teasing, “Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Late. ”
“I got up before you two did!” But no one was listening to her anymore. Arthur flat-out ignored her, laying his eggs out on a plate. Thomas was absorbed in the paper, while John had moved on to his new target, a five-year-old Finn, and Polly had moved on to scolding John. The kitchen was filled to the brim with rowdy laughter, yelling and so much noise. Yet, never in her sixteen years of living had Ada felt the silence more than she did in that moment.
She watched her family from her place in the doorway, unmovingly. It was as if she was a ghost. It was as if the door frame had blocked the light from reaching her family’s eyes, the noise from reaching her family’s ears, and the thoughts from reaching her family’s minds. Out of sight, out of mind , goes the saying. Though, is there a saying, Ada wonders, for something that is in sight, and yet still so far out of mind?
Family is supposed to care, and Ada knows that hers cares, in their own way. The teasing, the questions, the concerned looks turned to her when they thought she couldn’t see. These were all signs that her family cared for, loved her. However, them caring did not dim the fact that she does not feel cared for. It amplified it, in fact. What with the new “business” Arthur and Tommy started a year ago, they’ve been more distant than ever. Anytime she asks, they always respond with “Not a girl’s business,” and ruffle her hair, as if it would take the sting out of it. As if it would help! Ruffling her finely-combed hair, that she spends a quarter of an hour experimenting with each morning, would never help anything. It would certainly not help the bone-aching loneliness in Ada that was growing greater with every passing day.