Prudence agreed, as he knew she would. Leo led the way, the hill not being too far.
“Why do you think they call it Hooper’s Hill?” Prudence asked.
“The village kids would make hoops out of green sticks and roll them down the hill during the May Day festivals.” He had many fond memories of those games. He was never the winner, but he was not last either. Always solidly in the middle.
“I didn’t realize you knew the area,” Prudence said, though her tone made it clear she’d like to know more.
Leo couldn’t tell her much more; at least, he felt awkward doing so. In order to make everything comprehensible, he’d have to start the story far too early, and he wasn’t prepared to do that. “I do.”
“Did you ever do such a thing? Roll a hoop down a hill?”
Leo smiled, glad she was willing not to pry too much. “I did, as a matter of fact. You?”
“We made the hoops, but no hills where I’m from. We would throw things through the hoop as someone rolled it past, or we would race them.”
“Ah, gentle childhood,” he said, folding her arm into his.
“Maybe for you. My brothers were competitive. If they didn’t win, they were more than happy to try to sabotage your hoop, and barring that, jump on you and lay on you until you agreed to give them your hoop.”
Leo chuckled. “Sounds treacherous.”
“It was like a Shakespeare play, having brothers like that.”
“You must miss them,” he said, realizing that they hadn’t spoken much about their families. Their mouths had been busy with other things.
“I do,” she said with a heavy sigh. “My family and I write weekly. I admit my letters have been rather empty and remiss lately.”
“Why?” Leo asked.
She slugged his shoulder with a playful punch. “You! All my letter-writing time is going to you! I haven’t the time to sit and write long descriptions of London’s fashionable quarters, or what a countess wore to the opera, or what kind of meat they served at the hotel that night.”
“Sounds like riveting and important documentation,” Leo said drily.
“They’ll likely never cross the ocean,” Prudence said. “So to them, yes, it is.”
He hugged her close to himself as they crossed the meadow. The summer had already burned hot enough to dry up flowers, but the grass was happy and green. The day was cooling, and butterflies and ladybirds flitted amongst them, attracted to Prudence’s pink and yellow skirts. The shadow of the trees in the wooded areas kept the ground cool, and typically a bit moist, but not now.
Beside him, Prudence sighed. “These woods feel more like fairy tale woods than anything we have in Minnesota.”
“What are the woods like there?”
She shrugged and then smiled. “Different. Depends on which direction you go. Towards the west, nothing. Just tall grasses and plains forever. Nearer to the lakes, evergreens. But it isn’t just the types of trees, it’s the undergrowth and the birdsongs and the smell.” She took an inhale of the sweet summer air. “It just smells different.”
“Sweeter?” Leo suggested, feeling rather poetic himself at the moment.
“Only when you’re here,” she quipped.
He barked out a laugh, which she seemed to be proud that she managed to elicit. Dear God, helikedher. They made it through the path in the woods, and Leo found the path to Hooper’s Hill with no trouble. His memory of this place was pristine. But they said that memories made under duress weresometimes the most heavily drawn for that very reason. And these trees had borne witness to some black deeds.
Having Prudence at his side seemed to wipe the place clean, as if it were new, and none of his life before her mattered. She was the carbolic acid that cleaned out every bit of unsavory detail.
“Race you to the top?” Prudence suggested.
Before Leo could respond, she took off at a dead run. He was impressed, she was fast. But he thought he could hold his own. On her heels, he pumped harder, pulling ahead as they reached the hill. But that was where she excelled. He couldn’t keep up, while she kept her pace easily. He dropped back farther and farther while she bounded up the side like a red deer.
As he crested Hooper’s Hill, huffing and puffing like an old man, she stood, laughing at the sky, arms raised. There was no amount of words he could ever use to explain how he felt right then. This beauty, full of joy and passion and light, radiating it for the world, as if she powered the electricity of the world’s largest city. His chest felt full and expanding, as if he could encompass that joy himself, as if he too may turn into that person full of light and passion just by being near her.
The sun slung low on the horizon, creating watercolor-like swaths of pink and blue and lavender. He sat down in the ankle-high grass and pulled her down into his lap. She wasn’t a small woman, not so easily pushed and pulled, but he didn’t mind. They were good together—complementary fits of their personal puzzles. She leaned her back against his chest and they matched their breathing, moving as one organism, one person. It was here that Leo felt complete and whole for the first time in his life.
