Ma always rose before the sun.
Years of raising her own and half the children of Belfast had taught her that the quiet before dawn was sacred. That was when the kettle sounded loudest, when the house whispered with sleep, and when a woman could hear her own thoughts.
The kitchen smelled of yesterday’s curry and fresh bread. Ma stood barefoot on the tiles, robe tied tight, hair pinned up in a crooked bun. She stirred porridge with one hand and cracked an egg with the other, eyes flicking to the window as the first pink light bloomed over the city.
From upstairs came the shuffle of tiny feet.
CJ appeared first, thumb already in his mouth, hair like a wee haystack. He padded in wearing only one sock and dragging a dinosaur blanket behind him.
“Morning, love,” Ma said gently. "You're up with the roosters."
CJ blinked at her, yawned, and climbed onto the low stool by the table. He watched her cook with the intensity only a two-year-old could manage.
Then came Calen.
She was all curls and quiet, clinging to her lion teddy and blinking solemnly like the morning offended her. She didn’t speak yet—neither of them did much beyond babble and little bursts of song—but she had a look that said everything.
Ma smiled. "Well now, if that isn’t your mammy’s scowl and your da’s eyes. God help us all."
She poured warm milk into their cups, added just the right splash of honey, and set down two bowls of oats—CJ with banana, Calen with raspberry jam.
They dug in, messy and content. Calen made faces at her spoon. CJ fed the dinosaur blanket. Ma laughed and wiped their mouths.
“They’re wee magic, the both of them," she whispered.
CJ suddenly pointed at the telly, where a muted rerun showed a model walking across a stage. He tapped the screen twice and said, “Da.”
Ma turned, startled. “Where’d you hear that, pet?”
Calen looked up from her bowl, cradled her lion tighter, and whispered, “Shhh.”
Ma’s breath caught.
That night, when the house settled and the kettle cooled, Ma tucked the twins into bed beside Star, both of them curled against her ribs.
Down the hall, Cal whispered to Aoife about the baby. Tier sang off-key from the shower. Luc was folding laundry.
And in the hotel across the city, Cillian Devlin sat on the floor of the bathroom, back against the tub, lion teddy in his lap. He didn’t know what he was doing. But he knew one thing:
He wasn’t going to stop until his family came home.
The next morning, Ma set a pot of stew to simmer again, the scent curling into the stairwell. Cal was packing tools near the shed, Aoife painting her toes on the step, belly hidden beneath a hoodie. Tier and Luc had taken a long walk into the city to pick up some new fabric samples for Luc’s latest styling job—he’d muttered something about Cillian’s face being on another bloody billboard without his permission.
Inside, Star quietly dressed for work again. She kissed each of the twins goodbye, lingered with Calen a moment longer, then slipped out before her heart could change its mind.
Ma watched her go, then turned to the children.
CJ had a biscuit in one hand and a crayon in the other. He was drawing what looked suspiciously like a lion under a tree.
Calen climbed into Ma’s lap and placed her palm over Ma’s heart.
“What’s this mean, wee one?” Ma asked softly.
Calen didn’t answer. Just leaned in and whispered, “It hurts there. Mammy sad.”
Ma closed her eyes. “Aye, love. But she’s still standing.”
She rocked her gently and looked at the drawings, the blanket, the lion teddy on the couch. These children weren’t just Saoirse and Cillian’s. They were Belfast’s. They were Devlin Grove.
That afternoon brought one of those rare, golden sun spells that danced on the windowsills and turned the garden fence into something worth noticing. Ma had the back doors flung open wide, letting the spring air drift in as she ironed school uniforms and toddler dresses that had long since been stained with grass and jam.
The twins played near the step. Calen dragged a wooden spoon through a flowerpot like she was stirring a potion. CJ narrated a full battle between two plastic cows and a bent action figure he’d found under the sofa.
“RAWR! Mooo! No, Moo-man! Don’t jump!”
Ma chuckled as she eavesdropped. The nonsense babble carried more joy than any song on the radio.
The sound of the gate creaking pulled her attention. Cal appeared, shirt half-buttoned, hair damp from a rushed shower. He bent to kiss her cheek and dropped a grocery bag at her feet.
“Got the brown bread you like.”
She raised a brow. “You stopped at Finn’s after the site?”
He nodded. “Figured you’d be in nesting mode.”
“Cheeky,” Ma muttered, swatting him lightly with the tea towel.
As they shared a quiet laugh, Calen looked up and pointed. “Da?”
The question landed heavy.
Cal and Ma both stilled. CJ looked up too, blinking.
“No, love,” Ma said gently. “That’s just Uncle Cal.”
Cal swallowed. “They think every tall man with broad shoulders is him.”
“Maybe they’re not wrong,” Ma said softly.
That night, after dinner and stories and small hands finally let go of her sleeves, Star sat at the kitchen table with Ma.
“You ever feel like you’re living on borrowed breath?” Star asked.
Ma folded her arms. “Only every time I look at you and remember the night you came here near bled out.”
Star looked down. “I still dream about the dock sometimes. About him running. About how he didn’t know.”
Ma reached across the table and took her hand. “And now he does.”
“But it’s too late.”
Ma didn’t argue. She just squeezed her fingers and said, “The children know his face. And if they can feel love for a man they barely know, what makes you think yours is gone?”
Star said nothing. Just stared at the lion teddy resting on the armchair.
Across town, Cillian stood outside Ma Devlin’s curry shop.
He didn’t go in. He didn’t have the courage for that yet.
Instead, he pressed a hand to the glass. Inside was the table where they’d once hidden after curfew. The booth where Star cried the night before her confirmation. The same shop where Tier gave him hell for leaving.
He turned away.
In his hotel room, he didn’t sleep.
He sat beside the lion teddy on the bed, pulled out his old sketchbook from years ago, and started drawing.
A girl. A boy. A tree. A blanket.
He didn’t know what the picture would become. But he knew it would be the start of his return
Cillian didn’t sleep.
After the fight, after the hospital, after whispering half-hearted reassurances to Tier and Cal that he was fine, he’d taken a taxi back to the hotel and collapsed against the bathroom wall, still clutching the lion teddy. His ribs ached, but not as much as his heart. He hadn’t cried in years. Not when his mother died. Not when Marley called to say the agency was dropping him after a scandal. But tonight, alone in a city that once knew him, he wept for a life he’d lost before he ever truly lived it.
The lion teddy had once belonged to Saoirse. He remembered the fair, remembered winning it by hurling a perfect shot at the ring toss when they were only twelve. She’d smiled, wide and wild, and clutched it to her chest like it was treasure.
And now her child—their child—slept with it every night.
It undid him.
He sat up slowly, ribs screaming in protest, and reached for his sketchbook. Fingers trembling, he began to draw. Not poses or ad campaigns or London skylines—he drew Saoirse. Her profile in moonlight. Her hands as they once rested over his heart. He drew the lion again. He drew a tree. He drew two names in the bark.
Across the city, the house had settled into its version of night.
The twins were asleep curled on either side of Saoirse, their tiny feet tucked beneath the blanket Ma Devlin had hand-stitched from scraps of their baby clothes. CJ’s brow furrowed in his sleep the way Cillian’s once did. Calen murmured to herself in soft, songlike whispers—exactly like Star used to do when the world felt too loud.
Downstairs, Ma sat at the table, sipping tea as she stared out the window. Cal was still out back, pretending not to worry. Aoife had just come in from a walk and was quietly chewing her lip in the doorway.
“He looked awful,” Aoife whispered. “But still… him.”
Ma didn’t look up. “The him who ran, or the him who broke?”
Aoife came to sit beside her. “Both. But maybe more of the boy we remember. He looked like he’d been hollowed out and filled with grief.”
Ma sipped her tea. “He always loved deep. Problem was, he didn’t know how to stay when it mattered.”
Aoife hesitated. “I haven’t told him.”
“Told him what?”
She placed her hand over her stomach.
Ma’s eyes snapped up. “You’re telling me now?”
“I’m six weeks. Cal knows. Tier suspects. But I wanted to wait.”
Ma let out a low sigh. “Four. That’ll make four in this house.”
“Three, if you don’t count Kyle being with Tier most of the time.”
“We count Kyle,” Ma said firmly. “That wee boy’s heart lives in this home same as the others.”
Aoife smiled. “You’re right.”
Then she added, more softly, “What if Cillian can’t handle it all?”
Ma reached across the table and took her hand. “Then that’s his burden, not yours. You’ve got a good man. The twins have a full circle around them. Whether Cillian joins it or not, this family doesn’t break.”
Later, at Devlin Grove, Cal walked in to find Aoife curled on the sofa, rubbing her stomach through her hoodie.
He sat beside her, wordless, and wrapped an arm around her.
“You didn’t tell him,” he murmured.
She shook her head. “He’s already broken. I couldn’t.”
Cal exhaled. “He’ll find out soon enough.”
She nodded. “When it’s time.”
Back at the hotel, Cillian stood beneath the shower until the mirror fogged and the ache behind his eyes dulled. He dressed carefully, wincing with every motion, and slipped the lion teddy into his bag.
He didn’t know where he was going until his feet carried him to the old streets behind Devlin Grove. He passed the curry shop—Ma’s place—but couldn’t bring himself to walk in. Instead, he circled the block once, twice, staring at the windows.
He saw the booth where Star had once burst into tears over her da. Saw the counter where Tier had defended her like a soldier.
And he saw the photo wall. Dozens of smiling faces.
He didn’t know if his was still there.
The next morning, the house smelled of stew and fresh laundry.
Ma sat by the open kitchen window, peeling potatoes and humming an old tune. The sun crept through the lace curtains and landed on her shoulders like an old friend. She’d always said her bones could tell when things were about to shift—and today, they ached in a way that warned her something was coming.
Aoife slipped in quietly, barefoot and still in her pyjamas, a jumper stretched over her belly.
“You’re up early,” Ma said without turning.
Aoife hesitated. “Didn’t sleep.”
“Hmm.” Ma peeled another potato. “The wee one kicking?”
“No,” she whispered. “Just... thinking.”
She came around and sat opposite her, fingers toying with the edge of the tablecloth. “I haven’t told him. Cillian.”
Ma looked up then. “You planning to?”
Aoife sighed. “He’s barely breathing right now. He looks like a ghost walking through his own life.”
Ma set the knife down. “Aye. He does.”
“I know he’s not mine to worry about, but he’s Cal’s brother-in-heart, and he’s always been my big brother too. I can’t lie to him. Not forever.”
Ma reached over, covered her hand with her own. “Truth always comes out in this house, love. Just like stew always tastes better the next day. Give it time.”
Back at the hotel, Cillian stood staring out the window, sunlight slanting across the floor. He hadn’t slept. The lion teddy sat perched on the bedside table, watching him like it remembered everything.
He pulled out the drawing again. Star’s face, the tree, the children’s outlines. He couldn’t finish it. Not yet.
He opened the little packet Cal had left—bread, tea bags, and a folded drawing CJ had made.
A lion under a tree.
His breath hitched.
He didn’t know what he was more afraid of: that they looked like him… or that they didn’t.