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Elijah looks up at her with eyes full of worry as he gets his dad in position so that he can do CPR. "Mum," he says, instructing her calmly with his even tone. “You have to call for help. Call now."
* * *
Tallahassee Memorial is a hospital like any other, in Marigold's mind. It's quiet, brightly lit, and finds her, once more, at Cobb's side, waiting and worrying.
"How is he?" his sister Kerry asks over the phone. She sounds tired and strained.
Marigold puts a hand over her eyes and massages her temples as she holds her phone to one ear. "I don't know," she says, and she doesn't. The doctors are telling her that he made it through the emergency surgery to fix a blockage, but looking at Cobb as he lies prone in yet another hospital bed is doing a number on Marigold. "He's been sleeping most of the time."
"Should I come down tonight?" Kerry offers, though Marigold knows that she doesn't want to--not because she isn’t worried about her brother, but because she doesn't want it to be that serious.
"I think...no," Marigold decides. "I'm going to sit by his side all night, and I'll send Elijah back to our hotel for some rest. We'll touch bases again tomorrow morning, okay?"
Kerry is crying softly on the other end of the line. "You're sure?"
Marigold nods, but then remembers that Kerry can't see her. "Yes. I'm sure. How about if you think about coming to Shipwreck Key when I get him back there? At least then you'll be somewhere fun while you visit him. Seeing him here with tubes and wires..." She shudders as she thinks of Cobb as he is right now. "Shipwreck Key is way more fun than Tallahassee anyway."
Kerry manages a laugh. "I can imagine. And okay, I'll take you at your word, Goldie." She sniffles. "But if anything changes--anything at all--I'm on the first flight, got it?"
Marigold swipes at a tear that's escaped her own eyes. "Got it."
Over the next forty-eight hours Marigold manages to get about seven hours of sleep, she drinks eighteen cups of coffee, and Cobb's condition improves in fits and starts.
"He's awake," Elijah says, stirring her from her partially upright position near a window that overlooks a busy street lined with palm trees. Marigold has been dreaming about an Irish Setter that they'd had when Elijah was a small boy, and about the way the dog--Heathcliff--would run ahead of them on their walks through the countryside, traipsing through the high grass and chasing rabbits. "He's asking for you."
Marigold stands and stretches, throwing her cold cup of coffee in the trash can. "Let me use the restroom and I'll be right there," she says, snaking her arms around her son's neck and hugging him tightly.
After brushing her teeth quickly, wiping her face with a wet paper towel, and combing her hair, Marigold enters Cobb's room. He's awake and looking at the television on the wall. The screen is black and reflects the sterile hospital scene like a dark mirror.
"Hey," Cobb says in a raspy voice. "I've got to stop testing you like this."
"Testing me?" Marigold feels weepy with exhaustion as she sinks into the chair next to his bed and reaches for his hand. The overload of emotions that happens each time Cobb is in the hospital makes her feel frayed and worn; when she looks at her own reflection, she sees a woman who is light years older than Marigold actually is.
Cobb puts out a weak hand, which she takes. "You told me all those years ago that you'd always be there for me, and now I keep testing that promise." He winces. "Unintentionally, of course."
"You know I keep my promises.” Marigold scans his face. His color is gone, and his eyes look flat. Something isn't right. "Cobb?" she says, shaking his hand, which she's still holding. "Hey, Cobb?"
As she watches him, a machine behind him starts to beep insistently. It's high-pitched and urgent. Marigold stands, trying to make sense of the message that's flashing on the screen as the lines that show his vital signs jump, dive, and peak perilously.
Suddenly, the door opens and the room floods with medical personnel in scrubs. Everyone looks efficient, but panicked. "Excuse me, ma'am," a nurse says, nearly shoving her aside. Marigold watches, helpless, as nurses and doctors surround Cobb's bed, each person taking the lead on something different as they work in tandem to figure out what's going on.
"What's happening?" Marigold asks, looking from face to face and hoping that someone will tell her. "Is he okay? What's wrong?"
Finally, a male nurse in a pair of jade green scrubs that matches his eyes turns to her, taking her by the elbow and steering her out of the room with gentle force.
"I'm sorry, ma'am," the nurse says, holding her gaze. "Your husband is in cardiac arrest, and we need the room clear. This is serious."
"No," Marigold says, shaking her head as the nurse turns abruptly and goes back into Cobb's room. "No," she says again, shaking her head as she collapses into the nearest chair. "He's not my husband," she adds weakly.
These are the things you say and think when you're in shock, when you can't even help yourself.
"He's my ex-husband," she whispers to no one, folding forward in the chair and putting her head into her hands.
Marigold
"I can't believe you're back to square one.” Sunday shakes her head and echoes the sentiment of the rest of the women at the book club meeting a week and a half later.
"I can't believe it either." Marigold is deeply exhausted from spending so many days at Cobb's bedside in Tallahassee, but showing up here for book club was a nonnegotiable for her, even though Elijah would have preferred to see her stay in bed with a bowl of soup and a movie on her iPad so that she could start to recover from the long, hard days and nights they'd put in at the hospital.
