Page 39 of Dreams Do Come True

“Come on, honey,” Kean says, walking past me and opening the front door. I follow, closing it behind me, as Kean bends down and takes a sleeping River out of the car seat, holding our baby against his chest. River looks so small lying against Kean’s chest, his little legs pulled up in the baby scrunch, making him appear even smaller.

We hear happy chatter from the kitchen and walk in.

“Look whose back,” Ben says, spying us first. “What?” he exclaims, obviously seeing the children.

Silence descends as everyone looks at us with varying degrees of shock on their faces.

“Guys, we’d like to introduce you to Lyric and River Compton-Stone. Lyric is sixteen months old, River is five days old,” Kean tells them.

“Congratulations,” they all say.

Thankfully, no one jumps up and surrounds us, but Lyric still hides his face in my shirt.

“We’ve just sat down for dinner, you must be hungry,” Emily says.

“Starving,” I reply, walking to an empty seat and sitting down. Dropping Lyric’s bag over the back of my chair.

“Mum, do you want to hold River?” Kean asks, walking over to her.

“Of course I do,” she says, standing up. “Let me say hello to Lyric first, though.” She walks around the table. I move my chair out a bit. Emily kneels down. “Hello, Lyric. I’m Emily, but you can call me Nana.”

Lyric peeks an eye at her, but doesn’t say anything.

Emily touches his head, then stands up and collects River from Kean, and he comes to sit down next to me.

“Yay, more babies. Grandpops and Grammie will be so excited,” Nora says.

“Yeah, grandpops will laugh as the boys outnumber the girls by a lot now,” Xander says.

Enoch is sitting next to me. He smiles at Lyric. “Hi, I’m Enoch. I love your name. Are you hungry? We have toad in the hole. Did you know there are no actual toads in it, just sausages? Do you want some?”

I watch as Enoch wins over Lyric. He moves his head and looks fully at Enoch. “Nok,” Lyric says.

“Close enough,” Enoch replies. He cuts a small bit of sausage, stabs it with his fork and holds it out to Lyric. “Blow on it first, it’s a bit hot.”

Lyric leans forward and does a loud blow, pretty sure Enoch is now covered in Lyric spit, I know my arm is. Lyric takes a small bite and pulls back. “Hot Nok.”

“Okay, we’ll leave it here where it can cool down, then you can eat it,” he takes the bit of sausage off his fork and puts it on the side of his plate. “How about some peas?”

I touch Enoch’s shoulder. “Thank you, Enoch, but eat your dinner before it gets cold. I can put some food on my plate to cool down enough for Lyric to eat.”

I look up and see everyone watching us.

“We have the best family,” Ernest comments.

“Do we need to go shopping tomorrow?” Adhan asks.

“No. We have all of Lyric’s stuff from his house and everything that was brought for River. We fitted as much as we could in the car; the rest is coming by van tomorrow,” Kean replies.

“You know who their parents were?” Temp asks, surprised.

“I did. Reggie worked for the council. He and his wife were involved in a car accident..,” I go on to explain everything.

“Kitsunes,” Ebby says. “I thought they were Japanese myths.”

“So did I until I met Reggie,” I reply.

All through dinner, Enoch is chatting to Lyric, pulling faces and making him laugh.