What About Us | John Shelby

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

July 1917

Small Heath, Birmingham

Another year has gone by, and quickly this time. Three years now it's been since the war was declared. It's also been a year and two months since Tessa last got a letter from her husband, day by day she was slowly giving up on ever seeing him again.

Thankfully her oldest brother Will, sent a letter here and there from time to time. She had asked him recently if he knew any whereabouts of John, but they were all stationed in different parts doing different jobs. 

Tommy and Arthur were digging tunnels underground, as Tommy had written once to Polly about the whole thing. Will was shipbuilding, Edward was tasked with working out in the countryside away from the worse parts of the war and was to work to provide food for the soldiers. As Tessa knew from past letters John served as cavalry and machine gunners. Other than Tommy and Arthur, the rest were never in contact with one another.

Tessa's secret about her mother being killed had not been told out, as Charlies had not talked about it to anyone or Tessa herself, but that could change once the boys come back from war. Hopefully he will let the whole secret die down and be forgotten about again.

As for Ellen, she had packed up her suitcases and left Birmingham four months ago. Tessa had caught the woman leaving early one morning with her belongings in her bag. She tried to persuade her to wait it out a bit longer, but Ellen had enough of it all. She couldn't wait out for Arthur any longer "My relationship is just different from yours Tessa. You're married and have kids. You have a reason to wait for John, but I ... I'm just some woman who is by Arthur's side". Ellen had left a letter for the woman to explain why she had gone, and she also left a letter for Arthur if he ever did come back home.

In the past three years, they have lost two girls already. All that was left was Tessa, Polly, Ada and Anna. It was quite sad really to see the women lose one another, but what could they do. That was life.

The three girls were slowly losing their minds, waiting every night to see their loved one come home from the war. Tessa waited for John, Anna waited for Will and Ada waited for Freddie.

The kids didn't really ask much about their father or where he was. Tessa liked to talk about him a lot to them, as now Katie is four years old and James and William are three, as they would have a better understanding of it all. Katie had recently asked about John, as she was around a year and couple months old when he left, so she had remembered parts about him, but the twins hadn't really any clue about John as they were about three months old when he left for war they wouldn't remember him which was quite hard to think about.

Tessa had also seen less of her father, as he was busy with the Lee family. The last time she saw him was about six months ago. She didn't hate him for that, but she just wished he was there more for herself and to help with the kids as they are older now and a lot harder to look after.

Polly became very much a person Tessa valued in life right now. She was the best aunt in law she could ask for. The two had become even closer since the war had started as they were the ones looking after young kids and were looking out for the family business. Herself and Polly would spend nights at Tessa's house drinking till all hours, as the kids and Finn were asleep upstairs. That time at night was when the two women would really talk about their feelings and worries.

Tessa would talk about how much she wished John was here to help raise their kids and that she wished life could have treated her differently with everything that has happened to her over the past couple of years. Mostly Polly would talk about her own kids, she kept trying her hardest to find out anything about their whereabouts but it always came to a dead end. She never gave up hope though, she would and still is trying to find them with everything she has got left in her.  

-CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR-

-PEAKY BLINDERS-