All I Could Give

My Affection

"You can hold my hand," she told me. I swallowed and did as she allowed, accepting her red, calloused hand.

How, I wondered, could she fill her ragged dress as if it were a gown? Why did her crooked smile melt my heart? Her feet were bare, scratched and bleeding from the rough paths she took, her legs were thin as twigs, her frame was hunched and overworked, her face red around the nose and dark under the eyes. So how, how did she morph her copper-penny presence into that of a princess to me? My breath had shortened when I approached her and my tongue swelled. Listening to the birds chatter above us, I held her hand with the easy uneasiness of grasping something fragile that I trusted no one else to hold. Those eyes of hers held nothing but smiles for me, and were light brown in color, just like her mess of hair. I could not find a single imperfection in her. Not one...besides the top of her head. Bare and greasy, it did nothing to announce what a special person it belonged to.

I knelt down in the field to prepare a remedy.

"What are you making?" she asked, kneeling beside me. The ground sunk into our knees as I absorbed myself in my task. At last, I held up my creation.

"The Dandelion Crown," I told her, quietly. "For my queen." Surprised at my audacity, I recoiled from the dandelions? that the town girls would surely respond with.

"A crown?" Eleanor asked, instead, "For me?"

Comforted, I leaned forward and placed the crown on her head, saying, softly, "For you."

"Then we must make a crown for my king!" she said, and began the craft.

"No! I am not of your rank, surely!"

Despite my objections, Eleanor wove a crown from the yellow bulbs, placed it on my head, and took off running, seemingly caught by the wind. I sprang after her. We darted under trees and over brooks, in a hurry to get nowhere, crowned for being common. For once, the endless echoing of hammer falls died away in my mind, for once my back didn't ache, for once I believed in the sky, I believed in the world, and all this from chasing Eleanor through the woods. She collapsed into the embrace of a willow tree's roots, laughing. Her crown had fallen halfway across her face.

"I love this hour," she said. "This one golden hour."

"It's like honey," I added, liking the metaphor.

"You're absolutely right! It's like honey."

A silence lapsed between us, during which a flock of geese were briefly visible about the canopy of changing leaves, which seemed like an unmoving fire from so far below.

"It's getting dark faster now," I said, quietly, gathering confidence. Eleanor did not respond. There seemed to be so little between us now. Only... "Look at me," I told her. Slowly, she turned her face, and I carefully moved the dandelion apparatus aside, to reveal a fresh bruise I only glimpsed before.

"Eleanor..."

She recoiled at my touch. As the darkness gathered, I felt a surge of anger. Who could possibly be so cruel? Eleanor was simply the kindest girl I had ever met. Why, why would anyone wish her ill, or inflict such misery to her? What could I do to stop it? Nothing, I realized. What, after all, could a blacksmith's son do in the affairs of her wealthy step-mother? Nothing short of violence would break those bonds from her, and violence would surely injure Eleanor as much as meet its purpose. My eyes brimmed with tears, and Eleanor and I embraced there in the mounting dusk. What could there have been said about such a broken world as ours? I told her all the truth I knew would comfort her.

"I will always be here, at the end of the day."

"How I wish we could get away from here!"

"I know, I know. If I could fix the world for you, I would, and we could live in these woods. Since I cannot, if I could whisk us far away in this instant, I would do that too..." I was unable to admit I could do neither.

We gathered ourselves and began the long walk home to our respective dissatisfaction, then counted the minutes until we could meet again.

���MKڶ