Not having someone who knows the version of me before the hard things. He said. Aaliyah knew me when I was young and stupid and optimistic in ways I didn't earn yet. She knew me before I had reasons to be careful. He paused.
I miss being known by someone who remembers who you were. Clare was quiet. David used to do this thing. She said when I was upset about something and trying not to show it. He'd just sit closer, not say anything, just close the distance.
So, I knew he saw it. Even if I wasn't ready to talk, Marcus looked at her. Then, he moved. Not dramatically, not a grand gesture. He just shifted on the couch, closed the distance.
The way she'd described, and sat there. Clare looked at him. Her eyes did something complex. "Marcus," she said. A long pause.
"I'm scared," she said. "Me, too," he said. "Of the same thing, probably. " She looked down at her hands. Losing someone again, caring and then losing. Yeah, he said.
That's the one. How do you get past that? I don't think you get past it, Marcus said. I think you decide it's worth it anyway. She looked up at him.
And have you? She asked. Decided. The question sat between them like something alive. Marcus looked at her at this woman who had sat on her porch with a lamp on for four years waiting without knowing she was waiting.
Who had carried a letter in a box because she loved her husband too much to risk the memory. Who had stood at her front door and faced down Manonna's man who wanted to take something from her with nothing but her own stillness and her own voice. Who had sat at his kitchen table and held his hand while the most private room of her grief finally unlocked itself. He looked at her and said, "I'm deciding right now. " Clare held his gaze for three full seconds. Then she reached over and took his hand.
Not the way she'd taken it at the kitchen table. Not the comfort hold, the gratitude hold. This was different. This was a choice. Fingers lacing through fingers.
Deliberate warm permanent feeling in a way that a handhold has no structural right to but sometimes does. Anyway, Marcus looked down at their hands and something in his chest, that sealed room, that locked box, the part of himself he had maintained in careful storage for 4 years and 2 months and 16 days opened. Not with a crash, not dramatically, just opened. The way a window opens when someone finally turns the latch, letting air through that has been waiting outside for a long time. He didn't say anything.