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“Marigold,” Cobb said, looking up at her as if he were pleading for her to understand. He spoke to her slowly, like she was a stranger in a foreign land who just didn’t speak the language. “I can’t get things wrong. I don’t have the freedom to mess up.”
“Give me a break,” she said, standing up from the chair without warning. Her long dressing gown flowed around her bare legs. “You’ve messed up so many times that I’ve lost count. Look at you,” she said, feeling disgusted as she waved a hand at her husband. “You’re high as a kite. I’ve been saving you from yourself for a long time, Cobb, and you know who forgives you every time you mess up?” She stared down at him with a hurricane raging behind her eyes. “Huh? Do you? ME. I forgive you, so don’t you ever tell me that you don’t have the freedom to mess up. Because you mess things up plenty.”
Without warning, Cobb leaned forward again and covered his face with both hands, sobbing into them like his heart was breaking. Marigold blinked at him. Her anger, still white hot and indignant, felt sideswiped by his tears. She looked around at the closed doors all around the ground floor level of theriad, hoping that no one would poke their heads out to see what all the commotion was.
“Cobb,” she whispered urgently, hoping to snap him out of it. “Cobb, stop. Please.”
In turn, he only sobbed louder.
“Jesus, Cobb,” she said, falling to her knees in front of him and putting both hands on the sides of his head, forcing him to lift it and look her in the eyes. His face was streaked with tears and dirt, and his nose was running. The famous, beloved, adored Cobb Hartley was a total mess, and the only person standing between him and certain disaster was Marigold.
“I know I wreck everything, Goldie,” he said, wiping his nose with the back of his hand. “I’m not good enough for you, and I don’t deserve you. I just—“
“Stop,” she said, cutting off his pity party mid-sentence. “Just stop. You need to pull it togethernow. For me.” Marigold looked around again, but everything was as silent as the water of the pool. “You brought us to another country to have a change of pace. You wanted things to be different, and here you are, doing the same garbage you always do. It’s your responsibility to pull it together and fix this, alright? I’m not leaving and neither is Elijah—not right now—but we need you to buck up and sleep this off.”
Cobb nodded then, his head still cradled between his wife’s hands. She looked at him with pity, the first time she’d felt that particular emotion for him. The whole world thought of him as this creative genius who had everything he could ever want, and she saw him as a helpless boy who couldn’t say no to the siren song of drugs and alcohol. Who couldn’t keep his head above water without her there to act as a life preserver. Who, for whatever reason, couldn’t manage to see that hedidhave everything he could ever want, and that he was ruining it all by refusing to get the help he needed to get clean once and for all.
Still crying, Cobb let his head fall on Marigold’s shoulder and she wrapped her arms around him there under the Moroccan night sky. The pool filter hummed softly and the rest of the city seemed to slumber as she held him and rocked him back and forth in her arms. No, her feelings for Nigel Cobb Hartley were not uncomplicated. They were not simple. There was no easy way to fix him, help him, or make him understand. At that point in their marriage, all Marigold knew how to do was to be there for him through it all—the good and the bad.
“Marigold?” Sunday says now, which shakes her out of her own thoughts. She looks away from the window and back at the group of women there in the bookstore. The conversation they’d been having while she fell down the rabbit hole of memories has stopped, and they’re all looking at her curiously. “Are you okay?”
Marigold feels like she’s just reentered the atmosphere after a trip to outer space and she blinks at them for a moment, still holding her tea in her hands. She sets it on the table and stands up. “I’m so sorry,” she says, shaking her head so that her hoop earrings swing back and forth, bumping against her sharp jawbone. “I need to go.” Without another word, she walks through the store, leaving them all gaping behind her.
“Are you okay?” Ruby stands up hesitantly. “Do you need one of us to walk you home?”
“I can drive her,” Athena says, hurrying through the store on Marigold’s heels.
“Hey,” Athena says outside, catching up to Marigold. “Let me drive you home.” She touches Marigold’s elbow lightly, steering her to the passenger side of the golf cart that she and Ruby and Harlow share. Marigold doesn’t argue, but instead lets herself be tucked into the front seat like someone who is incapable of moving of her own volition.
“How do I know if he’s really changed?” Marigold asks, looking at Athena with searching eyes.
Athena stares back at her, clearly out of her depth here. “I don’t know, Marigold. I truly don’t know.” She reaches over and takes Marigold’s hand in hers. “But let me take you home, alright?” she offers in a gentle voice.
Marigold nods vacantly and they drive down Seadog Lane in silence for a few minutes, eventually turning onto the shell drive that leads up to Marigold’s bungalow. Athena comes to a stop but doesn’t set the park brake or turn off the cart. “Here you go,” she says, nodding at the front door of Marigold’s house. “Home.”
Marigold stares at the cheerful blue of her front door, painted to look like it belongs in the countryside. “I should go in,” she finally says, still looking at the door and the house, which holds her son and her ex-husband and all of the hurts and shattered hopes that their failed marriage brought into her life. “Athena?” she asks, finally turning to look at Ruby’s daughter. “Could you please do me a favor and not mention any of this to Elijah? Nothing I said today, and not my weird change of mood here. Please?”
Athena reaches for her hand again and takes it. “You got it, Marigold. It stays between us and the book club forever.”
Marigold gives her a small, sad smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “Thank you.”
Wordlessly, Marigold slips off the seat of the golf cart and walks up to her front door.
Ruby
Ruby stacks the tea cups and picks up discarded saucers and spoons as she makes her way around the bookstore. After Marigold's departure the women had stayed maybe thirty minutes more, talking and sipping tea, but then things had broken up from there and everyone had drifted off tiredly. Ruby can’t lie: everyone looked bedraggled from the holiday, and having a food-free meeting had been their best choice after overindulging the previous two days.
"So?" Ruby asks Athena, who is back in the shop and leaning against the front counter, chewing a piece of gum as she scans the New York Times Bestseller list to see which titles they need to order. "How was Marigold when you dropped her off?"
Athena keeps tapping at the computer keys as she snaps her gum. "Fine," she says, not giving away much with this single word answer.
"She didn't seem fine, Bean." Ruby sets the stack of cups and saucers down as she pauses on the other side of the counter with a hand on her hip. "I'm actually really worried about her. It's got to be stressful to have your ex-husband staying with you and recovering from a major surgery."
Athena lifts a narrow shoulder, lets it fall. "She was just tired, I think. Have you seen her Instagram photos? Everything looks like it's going well." Athena pulls her phone from the back pocket of her jeans and opens the app, scrolling until she gets to Marigold's page. She hands the phone to her mom across the counter and Ruby wipes her hand on her corduroy pants before taking the device.
The first holiday photo that Marigold posted was of Cobb and Elijah together in front of the Christmas tree, each with a guitar on his leg. The men are posed so that they're facing one another, and Cobb is watching his son intently. Marigold has captioned this one:There's nothing like family for the holidays--the family you're born into, and the one you choose. For anyone worried about Cobb, I should let you know that he's doing fine and recovering with me here on the island. He's doing well, and he says thank you to everyone for the concern and the love you've sent his way! This is followed by a string of heart emojis, and Ruby's eyes skim the message twice before she clicks on the comments.
You're an angel for taking in your ex, Marigold! I could NEVER!!!reads one comment.
