Chapter 25 : TV Dinner

Ash's POV "I think they're asleep." "Yeah, the little ones get tuckered out after dinner." When Kenny looked after the kids, his eyes twinkled. I'd always read that in books, seen it in cartoons, sometimes dramatized on the silver screen for corny effects—but never sincere. Never with tenderness. Kenny loved these kids, to say otherwise would be a bald-faced lie. It's a good thing too because there's a ton of them—I count ten in total and I've only committed about a third of the names to memory. The youngest and the first one I've had the honor of meeting—little Calvin Fisher—awakened with a sneeze. He tumbled over foster siblings lying in puppy piles, gait unsteady, and made a beeline right into Kenny's lap. He curled up like a Persian, head pillowed by Kenny's bicep, and nodded right back into dreamland. The room was bathed in twilight, the sunset has come and gone, sending long shadows to fill its void. It was late, later than I intended and Billie had come