Clara's chest had been tight for days, nearly every muscle in her body too. She found each breath too shallow to satisfy the need for air, her quick, muddled mind unable to rest, the week's anticipation keeping her wide-eyed and awake even when the night's hours were small. In the hours that had once been occupied with sleep and in those she could spare during the day, Clara passed more and more time with the things that reminded her of the boys, studying their faces in the photographs, thumbing through their old books and letters and drawings, trying to remember all about them that time had made her set aside.
It was a funny thing, Clara Shelby thinking of her older brothers as 'the boys.' They never had been boys to her, not before the war, and certainly not on the cusp of their return from France. There wasn't likely much boyishness left in them now, but Polly and Ada referred almost exclusively to Arthur, Tommy, and John in that way…the boys…their boys, and both Finn and Clara had picked up on the habit.
Preparations for the boys' return started not long after the news of the war's end reached Birmingham. Polly, not one to usually fuss over keeping the home immaculate so long as it was functional, had set them all to cleaning every surface in every Shelby-owned property on Watery Lane and Clara's fingers were sore from all the washing, her arms aching from all the kneading and mixing of food Polly also insisted on making, but Clara had been grateful for the distraction even if she would have usually preferred to occupy herself with the horses in her uncle's yard or the books on her brother's abandoned bookshelf.
The distraction had been a comfort to Clara, a comfort to them all, really, because despite the excitement inherent to the occasion, despite the banners, and the celebrations and the smiling crowds at New Street Station, Clara got the sense that all of Birmingham, and maybe even all of England, felt a bit uneasy about the waves of fathers and brothers and sons and lovers returning from France. And even though she'd missed their boys and spent each day of their absence wishing for their return, pouring over the vague letters they sent, her mind often lingering on the few lines of generic sentimentalities that told her nothing of the men coming back, Clara found herself a bit sick in the stomach as she waited.
In the time they'd spent waiting for the eleven o'clock to arrive, Ada had already stopped her younger sister from chewing at her jagged fingernails and interrupted her fidgeting with the nice church clothes Polly had forced her in to. She had separated Clara from the boys to stop the incessant bickering.
Ada knew the lot of it was caused by a bit of nerves on Clara's part, knew it because Ada felt it as well, a certain jumpiness that had the whole house up before the sun and moving ever since. It was something absorbed from the state of things around them as much as it manifested in them on its own, the natural result of not seeing loved ones for such a long time, the uncertainty of it all. Ada found a certain comfort in the act of taming that jumpiness in her little sister even if she wasn't at all successful.
Clara tugged on her sister's hand, barely whispering her name, and Ada glanced down, the girls' eyes meeting for just a moment as the train had stopped and Ada's eyes moved to the men were departing onto the platform. "Hmm?"
"Ada, what if they don't recognize us?" Clara whispered, her words insistent as she tugged at her sister's hand once more to garner her diverted attention.
Ada smiled down at Clara and ran a finger along her sister's wind-chapped cheek. The air was chilly and damp, a bit of wind, gray skies, and the wet pavement the only remnant of the morning's rainstorms.
"You've not changed so much that the boys won't recognize their Clara," Ada offered.
The twins had been six when the boys left, just babies then, but they were ten now, and proper children. It had been on Clara's mind for weeks, the notion that she wasn't the same girl that they'd left behind and that the boys wouldn't be the same either. She had seen Jack and Sybbie Woods's dad just the week prior and he certainly wasn't the same. The Mr. Woods Clara remembered liked to kick the ball around with the kids in the lane but this man seemed only to like shouting.
"But we're taller and—"
"You're not much taller," Finn said, leaning forward from Ada's side to see his twin sister. "Dr. Burke said you're littler than me…exceptionally short for our age."
Finn fumbled over the five syllables. The doctor had visited the school weeks ago, done a handful of examinations of Small Heath's impoverished youth and though he'd noted that Clara was exceptionally short, he hadn't given any indications that Finn was much better off.
"I'm not exceptionally short," Clara answered.
"Just a little short," Isiah said, coming around to Clara's side and leaning his arm onto her shoulder. The boy was now easily a head or so taller than both Shelby twins courtesy of a growth spurt, nearly tall as Ada.
Clara elbowed Isiah in the stomach, sending him back a step as he held himself around the middle. "I'm big as Finn and I'll be big as you someday, too. Bigger, probably! Bigger than both of you. Tall as Ada and Aunt Polly and your Nana."
"I meant the both of you," Isiah answered. "No need to—"
"No, I'm gonna be the tallest," Finn said. "Isiah's only bigger now because he's older."
"Well, you're only bigger than me because you eat all my leftovers," Clara answered, shoving her brother back a step.
"I'm bigger than you because you're the baby," Finn answered. "And a silly little girl."
"Enough!" Ada pried the twins apart for the fourth or fifth time of the morning. "Whatever you're lacking in height you both make up for with the size of your bloody mouths." Ada glanced up, still gripping a fistful of both kids' jackets. "Right, then. Knock it off. Here they come."
"Where? I don't see them!" Finn stood on the tips of his toes before pulling away from Ada to climb the nearby bench.
Clara looked down and stuck her hand into the bag Polly let her borrow, checking over the things her brothers had left in her care. For Arthur, a little book of drawings, for John, a favorite deck of cards, and for Tommy, his treasured pocket watch.
"They're coming off the train," Isiah said, nudging Clara's shoulder and nodding in the direction.
Isiah never met the Shelby men in real life, but he recognized Clara and Finn's brothers from the pictures and knew them as the men who populated the twins' bedtime stories when he stayed the night.
Clara caught a glimpse of them when she followed Isiah's nod, saw John and Arthur, at least. They were recognizable to her as the brothers she remembered, the ones in the photograph by her bed, but there was something different about them, even from across the platform. Just as quick as she'd sighted them, Clara lost them in the crowd, and as she was getting to figuring out what exactly that different quality was that inhabited her brother now, and just as she was getting to wonder after the whereabouts of her other brother, the one she hadn't glimpsed, a pair of hands lifted Clara off the ground and a mustache tickled her cheek.
"This is the baby? Our little Clara?" Arthur asked, squashing her a bit as he pulled Ada into the hug as well, greeting both girls with a couple of kisses on their cheeks.
"What have you and Aunt Pol been feeding these twins, Ada? They're growing like fucking weeds," John shouted the words over the crowd, laughter in his voice as it floated over the hiss of the train.
Arthur set his sister down and made a production of groaning as he lifted Finn. "Christ, kid. You're solid like granddad was."
"You should see your own children if you'd like to see some weeds," Ada answered, hugging John around the neck. "Sarah's nearly as tall as these two."
John tugged Clara to his side and busied himself with measuring his youngest sister's height against him.
"Where are they? My little animals?" he asked, glancing at Ada.
"Home," Ada said. "I can't handle these three and your lot out in public."
John's eyes flicked to the boy they'd had yet to acknowledge and nodded.
"Now, uh, who's this, then?" John asked. "Don't tell me the baby's grown enough to have herself a boyfriend."
"He's my best mate," Finn answered. "Clara's still too little for a boyfriend."
"Yeah," John answered, ruffling Finn's hair. "And we're glad for that, eh, Arthur?"
Arthur nodded. Whether they'd said it to one another or not, the Shelby boys had been worried about what they'd find in the youngest Shelbys, worried they'd come back to something entirely incongruous with the children they had left behind for four years.
"I think Isiah's nearly a Shelby now," Ada answered. "Been around with Finn and Clara more often than not these last few years."
"Isiah, you said? So, you're Jimmy's boy, then?" John said. "You were our Clara's first kis—?"
Ada saw the mischievous glint in John's eye and the smirk pulling at the right of Arthur's mouth. "Alright, that's enough. Leave the kids be. I'm sure Isiah wants to go see his father and we should allow him that. We can sift through the last four years tomorrow."
"I think The Reverend was down in the last car," Arthur nodded to the left and Isiah stepped away from the group.
Clara glanced after Isiah but quickly lost sight of him in the crowd. People slowly started dispersing, taking their welcomes from the platform to the streets and back to their homes, but there were still bodies Clara couldn't see through.
Clara slipped her hand into John and Arthur's, tugging on both hands at the same time.
Arthur glanced down at her. "What is it, sweetheart?"
"I have your things."
"What things?" Arthur asked.
"The things you asked me to look after." Clara dropped both hands and dug into the bag slung over her shoulder, retrieving Arthur's book of drawings and John's deck of cards.
Arthur covered his mouth as he coughed, otherwise quiet as he flipped through the book's pages.
John, too, was quiet as he slipped the deck into his pocket and pulled his sister up into his arms to give her a kiss on the cheek. He had all but forgotten that he'd given them to her to look after. Forgotten how insistent she had been that each brother give her something to look after since Tommy asked her to look after the pocket watch.
"Give her here, John," Arthur said as he slipped the tiny book away and held out his arms for her. "You're still a sweet little thing, aren't you?"
"Not always," Ada answered.
"Nonsense," Arthur answered. "Can't imagine our Clara being anything but sweet."
Ada rolled her eyes. "If you'd seen these twins just two minutes earlier you'd think differently. I'm surprised they're still both in one piece, the way they go after one another sometimes."
"Well, they are Shelbys, Ada."
Arthur gave Clara another kiss on the cheek and let her down. She slipped her hand into his again. "Arthur?"
"What is it, angel?"
"Where's Tommy?"
Arthur squeezed Clara's hand, offering a half-smile. "Just finishing up some business. He said to head on back to the Lane without him and he'll see you at home."
"And I'll be heading back to my own home myself, but we'll all be around tonight," John said. His hand landed on Finn's head, ruffling his hair. "We'll have a proper Shelby dinner. Did you help Aunt Pol make us something good?"
Finn nodded. "Clara and I helped, but not Ada. Aunt Polly won't let her in the kitchen."
John snorted. "Still a rubbish cook then, eh Ada?"
Ada was looking around the station, a brief smile coming to her face before she turned back to her brother, distracted by a small flip in the pit of her stomach caused by the sight of Freddie Thorne.
"What?" Ada asked.
"He said you're a rubbish cook," Arthur answered, "always have been."
"I am not!"
"You used to burn our tea, Ada," John answered. "Hopeless. We'll never be able to find you a husband."
Ada rolled her eyes. "You've been home twelve bloody minutes and—"
"Oi! Ada, it's a bloody joke," John answered, pulling her in for another hug. "Relax."
"Well, it's not very funny," Ada answered, shoving him off, "And as much as I'm loving you two badgering me, I've got to pick up a few things for Pol for dinner. You alright getting the kids back home?"
"You kids can remind us of the way, right?" Arthur asked.
Finn nodded and Ada disappeared from the platform without another word. John, Arthur, and the twins walked slowly towards the steps, Finn asking the boys nearly any question he could think of while Clara checked the emptying platform behind them.
Arthur felt his sister stop walking near the end of the platform, her hand slipping out of his before she set off running towards a group of three men at the far end of the train.
Arthur and John shouted after their sister knowing that Tommy was conducting business, his instructions to go on without him made clear, but Clara didn't halt at their shouts, didn't even acknowledge hearing her brothers, not even when Finn joined in.
"Doesn't listen very well, does she?" John said.
"Only when Aunt Polly makes threats," Finn answered.
"Well, we all listen a little better to that now, don't we?" Arthur said.
Clara stopped only once she reached Tommy's side, quiet and catching her breath as she watched him talk.
It was one of the other men, Mr. Taylor, who spotted her first, interrupting Tommy and nodding down towards the little girl with a smile on his face.
"Mr. Shelby, we have an audience."
