Roguish Women- Tommy Shelby

Standing Still

//Sorry for such a delay. School has been so tough this semester but this week is finals so I'll be back to writing in no time. I think Helen's death really took the wind out of my sails too. I still haven't really gotten over it. I take celebrity deaths so badly. 

            But by the time Tommy had returned, however, his own bride had gone missing. Alice pointed him outside again, this time on the back patio. Grateful for some time alone with her, Tommy left the rowdy party inside.

Kate was sitting on a garden wall; her back was to the party as she overlooked Arrow House's great lawns. Tommy shrugged off his coat and draped it over her arms.

The soft-touch of the fabric knocked her out of her own thoughts. "Did you find Alfie?"

"Yeah, he was out on the steps." Tommy sat down next to her.

"Oh good. Mabel was sure he had gotten cold feet and ran."

"He's not going anywhere. Never thought I'd see that man in love. Guess I've seen it all now."

Kate laughed softly and leaned into his side. Her eyes were still lingering over the grassy hills where grasshoppers chirped and a few owls surveyed hidden in their trees. "This place is bigger than the entire block I grew up on in Boston." She remarked, still in awe of the remarkable tract of land. "I'd always grown up wondering where those great outdoors were. The kind of places that are in stories. Where there was almost nothing for miles and miles. You couldn't see the end of it. I thought someday I'd go out west and maybe just disappear out there."

"I would've joined you." Tommy agreed. "I wanted to a cowboy when I was growing up."

Kate smiled and tried to picture young Tommy Shelby pretending to be an outlaw. In a way, he had become one. They both had. Just not in the way they had imagined. "I guess the city isn't so bad when you've got people you care about there. Still, it's nice to know that there are places where city stuff doesn't matter."

Tommy knew there were things they could never escape. But there was no use destroying the illusion. Not on their wedding day and certainly not when they were looking forward to welcoming in children of their own. Perhaps if they could pretend the world was safe enough they wouldn't have so much anxiety moving into the next part of their life. 

"I was thinking if we had a boy, we could name him after John." Kate glanced over at her husband. "Arthur and I were talking about it earlier. I guess we could nickname him Jack to make things easier. But I thought it would be a nice honor."

Tommy nodded. "I think that's a nice idea." There was a hole in his heart that his younger brother had left. So many times, he was tempted to pick up the phone and call him. But then the realization trickled over him like cold water. Esme had taken many things of John's when she left, but there were items Tommy still had. Letters and an old schoolbook that John had written all over. The binding was coming loose and the pages were yellowing, but Tommy would never throw it away. He had learned early on to keep little mementos of people before they were gone. He had nothing from his mother. No one did. It was almost like she never existed because there was no trace of her left. It was something he regretted and a mistake he wouldn't make again.

He took Kate's hand in his, squeezing it gently to pull himself out of the dip of sadness he always felt when discussing his late brother. "What if we have girls?"

"Then one of them will be Jacquelyn."

He chuckled. "You always have a plan for everything, don't you?"