The Happiest Days by Jonah
This is a story about love - real love - at work in the lives of good people. It follows on from "Halls of Academia," but the story really began many, many moons ago with "A Letter from America". There are no real people herein so, if you think one of the characters is based on you, or on somebody you know, have another think and come up with a different answer. Having said that, I didn't invent every character. A couple of them were originally crafted by another author. I have to (well, actually, it is my pleasure to) thank Jacob Lion, in the USA for his permission to use his characters in my stories.
I hope you will enjoy this story, and I'm grateful to Nifty for enabling me to bring it to you. Nifty does not charge either me or you for doing so, but it does cost money to do it. Please consider donating to Nifty at https://donate.nifty.org/ to help keep this site going.
Chapter 7 Red tape
Sunday night saw Garret and I in bed with two cute little boys, since their bed had been taken over by Jonah. Luke was downstairs on the settee. Philip had elected to sleep at the other end since he was used to Lloyd cuddling his feet. Most of the night saw me cuddling his feet as Lloyd had elected to wrap himself around Garret but I didn't mind.
When the alarm went off in the morning I continued cuddling Philip's feet as it would be easier for Garret to get Lloyd off to school if we styed in bed until they had gone. When I finally heard the front door close I got up and showered and then set about preparing breakfast for Luke, Jonah, Philip and myself.
Linda Knight rang shortly after breakfast time to ask if it would be convenient for her to pop in to check on Philip later on. As we were fostering Philip, she really didn't need my permission to do that, but Linda was one of the better sort of case-worker. I suggested she pop in at about noon as she could then have some lunch with us.
Luke and Jonah were on the settee getting in some quality time with Philip. I made tea and orange squash (for Philip - not as an additive to the tea) and joined them so that I could ask what their plans were for the day.
Luke said that he'd best be headed back to London at about elevenish as he had a night-shift to do.
Jonah said that he'd best be getting back at about elevenish too, since Luke was his transport, and could I give him a hand getting his things down from the boys' room as his back wasn't so good this morning. I followed him upstairs while Luke and Philip interacted.
"Close the door," he said quietly as soon as we were in the bedroom. I did so.
"Philip," I said, guessing what he wanted to talk about.
"Philip," he confirmed.
"Problem?" I queried.
"Unfortunately, no," he replied enigmatically.
"I didn't think so. He's a delightful little boy."
"That," he said, "is the problem. I'd like to know why he's a delightful little boy. There is not a hint of trauma, and there will be. I just need to know that you and Garret are prepared for that. It could be tomorrow, next week, next month or in two years time but, sooner or later, it has to come out."
"You've dealt with this sort of thing before haven't you?" I said, already knowing the answer.
"I had you and your brother, of course, you know that,"he replied, "but that was different in a way. Your father was known and loved by all his colleagues in the Met. and they all wanted to help. You can't expect that to happen here."
"I'd like to think there's a lot of humanity about," I replied. "There is - Kori taught me that."
"I always thought that boy was good for you," he observed. "Seems an age ago now."
"Do you ever...."
He shook his head.
"No. They left Ashfield ages ago. Still living life in the fast lane I expect. Time moves on and so do people."
It was my turn to shake my head.
"They're back," I told him.
"What?"
"Garret still talks to his father regularly. Yori says Jake's bought the farm and uses it as a sort of holiday home. Liam's still there running some sort of orphanage."
"Is Yori in touch with them?"
"No, he doesn't get out much these days. I reckon Me, Garret and Luke talk to him more than anyone in Ashfield does."
"How about Riku? Still roaming the world I suppose?"
"He's in the UK at the moment. He's got a concert in Norwich next Saturday. Garret's choir are singing at it."
"JONAH!"
My half-brother didn't always have a loud voice. I reckon the police force helped him develop it.
Jonah hoisted both suitcases and said,
"Better go."
"I thought you wanted a hand with those."
"No I can manage them downstairs. Coming up was a challenge."
Suddenly he burst out laughing.
"What?" I said.
"You can still do it," he replied. "That roll of the eyes when you think the old man's being daft. You can still do it."
I did it again just to prove it.
As soon as they had gone Philip and I drove into Norwich for supplies (actually, Philip didn't do much of the driving - he preferred to passenge). I planned on cheese omlette and chips for lunch and the Tesco Express on the Cromer Road provided me with crinkle cut chips a-plenty. We were back in good time and ready to serve up as Linda appeared punctual to her hour.
Linda was eager to get the adoption proceedings under way for Philip (I got the impression that this might be for fear that we should change our minds) but the first stage of the proceedure is the family survey to ensure that there are not other living relatives who will later claim that they should have been considered for guardianship. Philip knew of no such relatives but his father claimed that there was a great uncle living in Wisbech who would certainly care for Philip. A thorough investigation showed no relationship between Philip's father and the alledged uncle. His dad had then claimed that he was a half brother to his stepfather. There was no record that he had ever had a stepfather. The alledged great uncle then applied to become a registered foster parent, but both the police and social services opposed it on the grounds of the tissue of lies that had been thrown up around the case. Linda was fairly certain that we were clear to begin adoption proceedings and, in her view, the sooner the better. I had to tell her that Garret and I would make no move toward adoption proceedings until after his mother's funeral. Neither of us wanted to saddle Philip with too much emotional baggage to deal with all at once.
Linda had to concede that it was probably a sensible approach. In any case, she could hardly argue with Philip present. The boy himself seemed to be still pursuing his policy of letting the adults sort it out. Even a direct question from Linda as to where he would like to live elicited only a shrug. If that was meant to convey that it was a daft question, I agreed with him. Questions like that should be multiple choice.
After Linda had left I went upstairs for an hour before beginning to prepare dinner for the retrning troops. I judged Philip to be quite capable of amusing himself for a while in his bedroom (I had already begun to think of it as his room as well as Lloyd's). Apparently I judged wrongly since, I had no sooner lay down on my bed than a cute little pair of bare feet appeared next to me.
I wrapped an arm around his ankles and asked out loud,
"where did these come from. I don't remember these being here before. I wonder if they can be tickled."
There was a giggle and an emphatic, "No!" from the other end of the bed, and that was before I touched him.
"What? No they can't? I bet they can."
As soon as my fingers began scrabbling over the cute soles, the giggling and squirming began, but he had said "no" and where a child is concerned, no has to be allowed to mean no. So I stopped.
"Again!" came the laughing demand from the other end of the bed.
"What this again?" I asked as my fingers began scrabbling again.
"Or this?" I asked switching to using the tip of my tongue. I was not licking but using the tip of my tongue to tickle. The laughter intensified.
"Or perhaps this?"
I popped his little toe into my mouth, not to suck it, but to torment it with the tip of my tongue.
More laughter ensued, but he was getting too excited. After treating another two toes to that I lay back and hugged his feet.
"We're going to have to get dinner ready soon for when Lloyd and Mr. Ito get back from school, " I told him. "Let's have a rest before we have to start."
Without a word he turned on his side, leaving the soles of his feet facing me and lay perfectly still. I rested my cheek against the soles of his feet and we lay peacably for another ten minutes.
"What do you think we should have for dinner?" I asked eventually.
"Don't know," came the sleepy reply from the other end.
"How does pork chops sound to you?"
"Can we have apple stuff?"
"Apple sauce?
"Yes, that."
"And ice cream for pudding?"
"YES!" he exclaimed, the soles of his feet violently pushing my head to one side.
"Ouch! Careful Lloyd!" I exclaimed, and immediately apologised for calling him Lloyd.
Well, it was another trip to Tesco for us but the timing was perfect. Dinner was just about ready to serve up as Garret parked his 4x4 on the driveway.
After dinner, the boys went upstairs to play and Garret got businesslike.
"Two letters today," he told me. "The first is from Mrs. Harper. She want's to know if we want Lloyd to go on the trip to Manchester on July 11th. It'll cost us £18 and she hasn't mentioned Philip because it's not official that he'll be living with us then. I talked to her about that and she said, if he wants to go, she'll help us work something out."
"I'm pretty sure he will want to go if Lloyd is going," I pointed out.
"Yes, and I'll be one of the accompanying teachers. Sure you don't want to come and make a family outing of it?"
I grinned.
"Even if Mrs. Harper allowed it, I coudn't ask Grev for more time off. He's doing more than enough already."
"True. The other one's from Riku. He wants to know if we can put him up for Friday and Saturday nights."
"He's left it plenty late enough. That sounds like Riku. Well, if you don''t mind sleeping with the boys for a couple of nights, I'll get to sleep with a world famous concert pianist."
"Cellist, flautist, saxophonist, and I should think he'll be doing timpani and triangle by now," he said grinning." "Or, of course, you could sleep with the boys and....."
"Just tell him yes." I said quickly.
I'm pretty sure that I won't surprise you if I tell you that some trains ran after that. They didn't run a great many trains, and Garret and I weren't involved in it. Lloyd was even doubling up as signalman while Philip was his expert passenger. Garret and I kept the orange squash topped up. It wasn't exactly a peaceful evening.
Beeee-baaaaaa!
"heeeeEEEEEEeeeeyyyyyy!"
Every few minutes. I had never realised before that the Doppler effect applied to small boys.
I wouldn't say that this kind of activity was our routine but, if it had been, it would have been a good one. It meant that everybody went to bed happy and contented - and tired.
Garret and I both kissed the boys"goodnight" and tucked them in snuggly, at opposite ends of their bed. After that, we retired ourselves and,just like the boys, we were soon in dreamland.
Beeeep! Beeep! Beeep! ... Beeeep! Beeeep! Beeeep! .... Beeep! Beeep! Beep!
The high pitched beep cut through my slumbers. I heard Garret curse. I had rolled sideways off of the bed before I even smelt the smoke.