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“I broke my nose when I was seventeen,” she types in response to the first comment. “My sister convinced me to play in a powderpuff football game at school, and I took the ball directly to my face. I kind of like it how it is because I think it adds character. But it’s okay if you don’t—that’s showbiz, baby.”
“Airbrushing existed in the 90s,” she types out angrily to the comment about her thighs and their Jello-like consistency. “Real women have a little meat on their bones, even if people like to pretend that we don’t.” She looks at the picture of the commenter: male, of course. “You should consider your own flaws and imperfections—would you enjoy people commenting on them?”
And finally, to the person who believes that her finances should support full facial reconstruction via fillers and muscle relaxers: “I’d rather donate money to a children’s hospital than spend it on face treatments,” she writes with a smirk. “I feel like that’s more in line with the spirit of the season. Merry Christmas.”
It’s funny the way people assume she’s got millions and millions of dollars. Sure, at the height of her career she was making an astounding sum, and she has invested it wisely and watched it carefully over the years, but Marigold had essentially stopped modeling full-time once she became a mother. The years she spent raising Elijah had been funded almost entirely by Cobb’s money, and when they’d divorced, she’d insisted on receiving the minimum amount of alimony, something her lawyer had repeatedly insisted was insane and unnecessary.
But to Marigold, ithadbeen necessary. She never wanted Cobb’s money in the first place. Sure, it had provided them with an amazingly comfortable and easy life, but once they decided to divorce, Marigold knew that one thing she never wanted for herself was to be on Cobb Hartley’s payroll. So she’d set out to break back into modeling, which she’d done, scoring campaigns for brands that catered to busy moms and women of a certain age with a bit of disposable income, and things had gone well. Between those jobs and her own savvy investments, Marigold has been able to fund her life here on Shipwreck Key, building her dream cottage, traveling back and forth to London as needed to visit Elijah, and filling her time with whatever creative pursuits interest her—from writing, to gardening, to watercolor painting, which she loves to do at an easel in her walled garden. It's a good life. It's one she cherishes and feels proud of, in spite of the fact that she's alone most of the time.
"Mum?" Elijah is at the door to her bedroom and she turns around to face him. "I'm making lunch here. You want some?"
Marigold stands and follows him to the kitchen, which is filled with the delicious scent of a parmesan mushroom risotto and the smell of baking sourdough bread.
"Where's Dad?" she asks Elijah, who is holding up a wooden spoon of risotto for her to taste, cupping the scoop over one hand so that he doesn't spill it. Marigold leans in and takes the bite from her son, making approving noises. "Mmm, delicious."
"Dad is napping," he says, tilting his head in the direction of the room where Cobb is sleeping. "I thought you might want to take lunch in to him."
"Buddy," Marigold says with a frown, leaning one hip against the kitchen counter. "I know you're a grown man, but you don't actually think that this whole thing is going to force me and your dad to get back together, do you?"
Elijah huffs in disbelief. "I've seenThe Parent Trap, but no, I'm not harboring those kind of delusions." He turns his back to her as he checks the bread. "You and Dad split up for good reasons," he adds, closing the oven door carefully. "Didn't you?"
Marigold folds her arms over her chest as she watches Elijah. "Yeah," she says softly. "There were very solid reasons why we couldn't be together anymore. And I think your father would agree that we're far better apart."
"Would he?" Elijah glances at her over his shoulder as he pulls plates from a cupboard and sets them on the counter as quietly as he can.
Marigold admires the way Elijah knows his way around a kitchen; it's not a gift he necessarily got from her, though she can certainly bumble her way through pretty much any meal with better than average results. His innate understanding of tastes and textures were helped along by a three-year relationship with Claire, a chef he'd met in his early twenties. Together they'd created more than one unforgettable meal, several of which stand out in Marigold's memory as the best things she's ever eaten. Most importantly, Elijah loves the artistry of cooking, and she's more than happy to be the lucky recipient of his skills.
As Elijah continues to dish up the risotto, Marigold lets her mind drift back to one of the frayed seams of her relationship with Cobb. Sometimes she finds her mind turning these memories over against her will as she sinks her hands into a soapy kitchen sink, scrubbing dishes as she looks out at the sky. But this time she willingly conjures the image, letting her mind shave away the years on both her and Cobb's faces, bringing to life a vision of them at twenty-five (her), and thirty (him), sitting in a hotel room in Copenhagen with a sleeping three-year-old Elijah in a Pack 'N Play crib near the window.
"You can't keep doing this," Marigold had whispered tiredly, hunched over at the foot of the hotel bed. She'd been in the room all night with their toddler while Cobb had gone out with the band--and presumably with its groupies--all night long, tripping through the doorway and into the room just as the sun started to come up. "This isn't real life, Cobb."
He'd looked absolutely steamrolled. Exhausted. Bedraggled. In his eyes, Marigold could see that he'd been mixing coke and booze all night, and the knowledge infuriated her, but it also made her sad.
"I can't raise him alone," she said, nodding at their beautiful little boy, curled up on one side with his sweet baby cheeks flushed pink with sleep. "And if you keep living this kind of life, we could lose you." Her words came out on a sob.
Cobb took off his jacket and tossed it in the general direction of the couch. He sat down next to the coat and leaned his head back, closing his eyes. "I have to go out, Goldie. I have to blow off some steam. You have no idea how much it takes out of you to be at the mercy of the entire world, and everyone wants something from you all the time."
"But Cobb, we have enough. You can quit. No more tours. Let's just go live in the countryside and raise our son and be together." Marigold got up and walked over to him, sinking down onto the couch next to her husband and curling up next to him so that she could put her head on his chest. "Let the world enjoy the songs you've already written, and let us enjoy our family."
Cobb opened his eyes and lifted his head, looking down at her with fire in his eyes. "See, Goldie? Even you want something from me. You want me to be this guy--this family man--and I'm not sure that's even who I am."
Marigold sat up like a jolt of electricity had shocked her body. "What? What are you telling me?" she hissed. "Are you saying you don't consider yourself a husband and a father? That you don't want to have a family? Are we holding you back?"
"No, no, no," Cobb said, sitting up so that they were looking at each other eye to eye. "That's not what I mean. I don't know what I mean. I'm confused."
Marigold stood up, still trying to keep her voice low so that they wouldn't wake their sleeping child or the people in the hotel room next door to them. "Then you better get un-confused real fast, Nigel Cobb Hartley.Realfast. Because I'm not following a man around the world with a baby in tow, watching him self-destruct. I'm not going to let you take me and Elijah down with you."
At that point, she'd gotten back into the bed, pulled the covers over her head, and cried until she fell back to sleep. She'd assumed that Cobb had simply passed out on the couch, but when Elijah's happy baby chatter had woken her up around nine-thirty in the morning, she saw her little boy standing up in his Pack 'N Play, singing and calling her name. The couch was empty. Cobb was gone.
"Here's a tray for Dad," Elijah says now, shocking Marigold back to the present moment. All of a sudden, she's not a distraught twenty-five-year-old wife in a Copenhagen hotel, but a middle-aged woman about to spoon feed her ex-husband a plate of risotto. "I'll bring in a glass of water for him. And I'll wait to eat until you're done with him."
Marigold smiles at her son and takes the food from him. Cobb is awake in bed when she walks into the room. He's propped up on three pillows with a book open and turned facedown on his lap.
"Hey, lass," he says to her with an exaggerated British accent. He can turn it on or scale it back at will, but he knows that she's always tickled by his accent. "Thanks for the nosh."
Marigold gives him a half-smile and sets the tray on his lap when he moves the book aside. "Do I need to feed the patient?" she asks, pausing next to him and putting the back of her hand to his forehead the way a mother might with a sick child. She does it before she even realizes she's about to, and then jerks her hand away like she's placed it on a hot stove.
"If I'm feverish, it's because you grace me with your stunning beauty," he says, winking at her as he lifts the fork. "And I can feed myself, thank you very much. Although a smarter man would definitely feign helplessness so that a gorgeous model might do everything for him.”
