“So, I have an idea,” I told him. “We’re going to be out for a long time today, if that’s all right. Probably past dinner.”
“A long date?” He seemed to love using the foreign word. “Well, tha’s just terrible, it is.”
I laughed, charmed because he’d never really teased me before. I bent to pick up my backpack and put it on my shoulders. It had my laptop and a spare battery pack. To be on the safe side I shoved my compact umbrella inside, too. Then I leaned down and lifted the bin. It wasn’t heavy, but it was bulky. McKale took it from me, looking down at the blue plastic container with interest.
“You’ll see,” I promised him. “Come on, let’s go.”
We stopped at the kitchen and grabbed a bundle of bread, dried meat, and a jar of mead. And then we were off, veering out from the village to make a wide arc around the portal. Neither of us made mention of the other realm or its freaky occupants. McKale led me through the grasses and underbrush, stopping once to pull a small licorice plant from the ground. We skirted the edge of the forest, which was lined with beautiful, tall flowers. McKale must have seen me admiring them.
“Hollyhock,” he said, nodding his head toward the flowers and then looking straight ahead as he carried the bin with ease. His ears seemed to redden. My eyes went back to the flowers growing along the border of the woods, and I was amazed. I reminded him of those? They had solid stalks where they shot up from the earth, spiking upward into multiple stems with light green leaves and clusters of gorgeous blooms. There were hundreds of the flowers lining this path, in soft violets and rich maroons. Looking at them made me feel beautiful and strong.
“’Tis here,” McKale whispered. We came to a hill with an oak tree sitting at the top. I relished the slight burn in my legs as we climbed until we were shaded under the oak’s thick canopy. It smelled earthy, like moss and mushrooms. McKale set the bin down amid the soft grass and clover as I spread a blanket, motioning for him to sit next to me. My whole body was alight with anticipation.
“I’m going to start at the beginning,” I explained, cracking the bin just enough to pull out the paddle and ball. My hands were shaking. “This is a toy. It goes like this.” I tried to show him and he chuckled as I fumbled. A perfect example of why I didn’t play hand sports. I held the toy out and told him to give it a try. After a few failed attempts, he totally had it going, just like the seven-year-old-me knew he would. He was so cute concentrating with his tongue poking out again.
“Kale?”
“Hm?” He continued bouncing the ball on the paddle, almost losing it but recovering with a slight tilt.
“I got that for you when I was seven. Will you do me the honor of accepting this gift?”
He brought it down to his lap. “Seven? Ye were but a wee child…”
I nodded. “And I was thinking about you.”
He was motionless, and I could sense thoughts circulating in his mind, trying to process the idea.
“Aye, Robyn. I would be honored to accept this gift from ye.”
“Yay!” I laughed at my own girly exclamation.
And so the fun began. One by one, I pulled out each gift in chronological order, explaining and asking him to accept it. My inner child rejoiced with each acceptance, and as the gifts piled up around him, I felt something lifting in each of us, shifting us closer. When we got to the first gift that I’d talked about on video, I set up the laptop and watched McKale’s eyes pop.
He wanted to push the buttons and know what they each did, so I gave him a brief tutorial before pushing play. My nearly fourteen-year-old face filled the screen.
He laughed and pointed. “Blazes, ‘tis you Robyn!”
I laughed, too, mostly out of embarrassment about my badly chopped bangs in the video. And, oh geez, was that a pimple on my chin? Would it have killed me to wear some make-up?
“Almost four years ago,” I said.
We watched for several hours, cracking up laughing about some of the silliness, especially things that Cassidy said whenever she’d video bomb. I’d forgotten about a lot of it. But the best part about the video was watching McKale’s reaction. He stared, riveted, leaning toward the screen. Sometimes he would nod in response to the on-screen me, or say something under his breath. He was oblivious to anything else.
In retrospect I can say it was during those hours of video-watching under the tree that I fell in love with McKale. As he watched me transform from an awkward new teen to a young woman on the screen, I watched him change from a jaded young man to a man who realized he’d been wanted all along.
I watched him heal, and I knew he finally saw the truth—finally saw me.
It was dusk when the video ended. He sat with his knees up, looking around at the gifts, understandably overwhelmed. He shook his head and ruffled his hair.
“I don’ know what to say, Robyn. I…”
“It’s okay. You don’t have to say anything.”
“But I do.” He spread his arms at the display of things around us. “I never thought… If I’d had any notion…”
“I know. I just wish I could have written you or something. And I didn’t expect you to do anything like this.” I motioned toward the gifts. “I know bindings are for the bloodlines, but it’s hard to spend every day growing up with parents like mine and not hope for that kind of happiness.”
He turned to face me where we sat, placing us closer with our legs touching.