Page 115 of The Unknown Birds

“Ash, do I have to go?” George, the ten-year-old, begged.

“Sure do,” Rook called.

“But Alex, I’m a Chelsea man,” he moaned.

“Well, today we’re all Gunners,” Ash told him, tossing him an Arsenal scarf to wave. “Don’t worry, it’s not disloyal if your parents make you go.”

“Well said, my love.” Rook leaned over Mabel’s head to kiss her, while in his bedroom, George was making gagging sounds.

“Who knew loyalty could be so staunch for a team that hasn’t played a league game since you were a year old?” Rook asked.

“They played in the FA cup last winter,” George corrected him.

“Did they?”

Ash nodded.

“Oh.”

“My dad was a Chelsea man,” George reminded them.

They shared a look, and then Ash kissed Rook’s cheek and patted his shoulder before entering the boy’s room and kneeling down before him, so she could be eye level with her adopted son while he sat on his bed. “You can be a Chelsea man, too. This is just a bit of fun with old friends.”

The boy nodded solemnly and shrugged. “Once more unto the breach?” he quoted.

“That’s the spirit,” Ash laughed, ruffling his hair while he tried to dodge away.

It had been a difficult transition for both the children, orphaned by the second war. Mabel didn’t remember their father, a pilot who’d been shot down when she was still an infant, but she’d spent every day with their mother up until the poor woman was killed in the Blitz.

George claimed to remember their father, though he’d have been very small and his memory was tinged with the golden-sheened worship of a toddler’s eyes.

Rook stood in the doorway watching them, and Ash squeezed his elbow as she went out.

“Do you need help with your braces?” he asked.

“No,” George replied, because he was nothing if not fiercely independent.

Rook turned back to where Ash was watching and rolled his eyes a little.

“Alex?” George said hesitantly. “Did any boy with polio ever grow up to play football?”

Rook’s eyes went soft. Five minutes, he mouthed to Ash and went back in. “I honestly don’t know,” he told George as the boy buckled the braces around his legs. “We’ll ask Cooper. He’ll be able to tell us.”

“The truth,” George said solemnly.

“The truth is, lad, no one ever has done a thing until someone does it.”

Ash smiled, for those words were written on her bones.

“Now come on, you animals. If we’re any later, they’ll make you try out for the team,” Rook called, returning to the kitchen, where Ash threw her arms around his neck and kissed him fiercely.

“What was that for?” he asked with a smug little grin.

She shook her head. “Have I told you this morning how very much I love you?”

His smile broadened. “Have I told you how much I like those denim trousers?” he asked, raking his gaze down her body in a way they most certainly did not have time for, especially with the children running about.

“Thought we were going to be late,” George said, popping into the kitchen and rolling his eyes at the pair of them.