Massaging his shoulders and neck, I ease the tension from his body.
That's when the memory surfaces, and he softens his guard.
“When I was little, my mum used to cut the kangaroo off the front of the cereal box. I'd wave to the roos in our vege garden, thinking they were him. Broke my heart every time we had to shoo them away.”
I hold my breath.
I’ve never heard him mention his childhood so casually. Barely at all.
And there’s more.
“I'd stick them on my bedroom wall with duct tape I nicked from the shed. We never really had the money for posters or anything fancy. No shops out there.”
Out where?
He freezes, as though he’s said too much.
The tension returns to his body.
So I hold my questions, even though I have so many.
I simply lean down for a kiss.
“We never finished this dumb show,” he laughs, reaching for the remote.
As the screen flickers from scene to scene, the shoulder rubs continue.
And soon we stumble into bed, drifting off to sleep.
???
When Marco gathers his keys and phone to leave for work the next morning, I hold up a pair of scissors.
“Give me just one minute,” I say.
I return holding something familiar in the palm of my hand.
The kangaroo from the cornflakes box.
“For your wall,” I shrug.
Staring at the cardboard cut out, his lip quivers.
“I know you have a past,” I tell him, cradling his face in one hand. “But I’m not scared of your shadows, or your tears. I can handle the dark and the storms. When you're ready.”
He dabs his eyes with the cuff of his sleeve, folding into me in a way that breaks me open.
“And if I turn off the city boy lights and show you the darkness, you won't run?”
“I won't run,” I promise. And I mean it.
For the longest moment, we stand in the entry way.
He bends the tail of his tiny kangaroo back and forth, deep in thought.
Then he kisses me tenderly on the cheek and walks out the door.
???
