EPILOGUE
EVIE LOOKED up from watching Isaac happily crawling around the back yard to see her husband approaching with a massive wrapped box.
Finn grimaced as he set the heavy box on the ground. ‘Delivery for the birthday boy.’
Isaac turned at the interesting new arrival and crawled their way, gurgling happily. It was hard to believe a year had passed since the frantic night of his birth and while the doctors still corrected his age to nine months, it was still his birth day.
His milestones were behind, he was only just crawling and he was smaller than most kids his age, but he was bright and engaging and his parents were besotted with him.
Finn bent and picked his son up off the grass, kissing him on the head. ‘What do you think about that?’ he asked him.
Isaac kicked his legs excitedly and Finn and Evie laughed as they helped him pull the paper off the box and get it open. Inside sat the most exquisitely carved and decorated rocking horse Evie had ever seen.
‘Finn,’ she breathed reverently as he pulled it out and placed it on the grass. ‘It’s beautiful … Where did you get it?’
Isaac squirmed to get down and Finn obliged. ‘It’s not from me,’ he murmured, upending the box and searching for a card. A piece of thick embossed card slipped out.
Finn read it. ‘It’s from Khalid,’ he murmured.
Evie stared at it. A Saudi oil prince had sent Isaac a first birthday present. The sun shone down on the exquisite workmanship and they both admired it for a moment.
‘Is that … gold leaf?’ she asked.
Finn nodded. ‘I think so.’
They looked at each other and laughed. Then they heard Isaac giggling too and looked down to find him peeking out of the box at them.
‘But who needs gold leaf when you’ve got a box?’ Finn smiled.
And Evie watched with joy and love in her heart as Finn pushed a giggling Isaac round and round the yard in his cardboard car.