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"My God, Tommy, what are you doing here at this hour?"
Tommy was on his knees, hands and feet against the cold tiles. Head nearly swallowed by the lowest cupboard, his dangling suspenders were bumping on his bare chest, following the rhythm of his nervous search.
"Sorry, I've woken you up." He replied without looking up.
Ada yawned. "That's alright, what are you looking for?" She leaned against the doorway, closed her satin robe over her chest.
He didn't reply. Busy opening another cupboard and searching through the clinking marmites and cast iron cooking pots.
The commotion echoed in Ada’s sleepy head. "Tommy. What are you looking for?" She raised her voice.
"Where's your book about dreams? The one you talked about."
She crossed her arms as she rolled her eyes.
"Can't it wait until tomorrow?"
"I need it right now." He replied dryly, looking among the cooking pots again.
"Stop it! You won't find it in my kitchen cupboards, for fuck's sake. You're going to wake up the whole bloody house." She angrily whispered.
Tommy let himself fall on the floor to sit against the wooden cupboard. He looked up to her: "I'm serious, Ada. Where is it?"
"Why would you need it right now so suddenly? What happened?"
He pressed his nose between his thumb and forefinger, before taking a long deep breath. Exhaling it as if the whole weight of the world was pressing on his shoulders. His head fell slowly on his knees.
"Sometimes, I dream awake. I see the room but I can't fucking move.". He whispered as if he was a kid confiding his sins in a confessional: "It cannot be real because I see her." His two hands had gripped every side of his neck and his fingers were now digging in his skin.
Ada took a deep breath and didn’t know what to do with her hands. She walked to sit on the floor right next to him. She unclasped his hands, lacing hers around his shoulder.
"She stands in the corner of the room, and stares at me. She does nothing else. Grace's just there and she stares, and stares, and fucking stares. And they're not her eyes, Ada." She stroked the back of his neck.
“The usual ones are still there, but these ones are different.”
Tommy stood abruptly and ran to the living room. “I need a drink.”
Ada followed him and he was already cracking open the new, shiny bottle of Irish Whisky.
“Do you want a glass?” He asked seriously.
“God, no.” Her eyebrows furrowed. "Couldn't it be that medicine you sip all day long? You’re not being yourself right now."
"Need it for me headaches." He poured himself a drink and chugged it. The glass got knocked back on the side table too firmly.
"How much do you take?"
"I don't know."
"A lot then.”
Tommy interrupted his second pouring to stare at her.
Concern dripping from her eyes, she lowered her voice: “Don't you think it could be that though?"
"I don't know, Ada. I'm no fucking doctor." He drank a second glass in one gulp.
"You should maybe talk to one about the visions. I know someone. I could get you an appointment quickly. It's a friend of Ben.” Her hands laid on the sofa curled around the padded velvet
It caught her off-guard, but he answered: “Yes, alright.”
Her fingers released the fabric of the sofa and it felt like another abandonment.
She turned around to her bookcase and found it quickly. She handed it to him. “Here’s the book. I’m not sure you’ll find what you’re looking for though.”
Tommy brushed his thumb over the binding and the embossed letters of the title.
"You think I'm sick." He said as he looked up straight through Ada’s soul.
"No."
She paused.
And hesitated before reopening her mouth.
"Some doctors-"
"See."
"Let me finish. Some doctors work with men who used to be soldiers, and they start to find answers, you know."
"It was a long time ago, Ada. Mum saw things and she had never laid a freakin’ foot in bloody France. It's in our fucking blood."
“It can’t hurt to try though.” She placed her hand over his wrist. “Please.”
“I already said alright.” He looked away.
“Thank you for this,” The book was lifted in the air “You should go to sleep.” He breathed before walking out of the living room to go upstairs.
“Tommy” she called after him. The old steps winced as he stopped in his track.
“Will you be alright on your own tonight?”
Tommy snickered humorlessly. “I’m no fucking child. Good night, Ada.”
And in the blackness of the stairs, he disappeared.