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"When you say my full name I know I'm in trouble," he says, staring at her with a challenge in his eyes. "But why would I get up and risk falling down again?"
"Why does anyone risk getting up and falling down again?" she counters, still pointing at the floor.
Rather than standing up, Cobb folds his arms across his chest and glares at her. "I tried getting up already on this trip, Gold, but you shot me down."
Marigold can feel the heat rise from her core, travel across her chest, and spread up to her face. A hyperawareness floods through her limbs, like a tingling that won't stop.
"Are you blaming me for this backslide?" she asks incredulously, the finger that had been pointing at the floor dropping to her side. "Is that really what you're doing here? Guilting me into feeling like I had something to do with you needing another surgery? Because that would be extremely manipulative, Cobb. I do think taking you to Christmas Key might have been too much, but I meant the actual physical journey, not me being unprepared to hear that you want to get back together."
It's not like him at all, but his eyes fill with tears as he watches her. "I'm not trying to dump guilt on you," he says, shaking his head. "I'm being honest, like you were with me when you finally left. You told me you couldn't take it anymore, and I understood that. I never once blamed you. But now I'm being honest with you, Goldie. I've always loved you--even the day you packed your things and left. Everything I did, I did for you. I mean, I got sober for myself too, obviously, but I also did it to prove to you that I was ready to be the best version of me that I could. I stuck with it through some hard, lonely times because I wanted to continue being the kind of man you could believe in. I've put in the work, Marigold, and all I'm asking you to do is see it. See it, acknowledge it, and tell me once and for all if you could love me again."
Marigold is completely taken aback. In fact, she stumbles a little and catches herself against the windowsill. She'd known that her leaving was the impetus for Cobb's finally getting sober, but she hadn't known that his success had hinged largely on becoming someonefor her. That he'd done it so she would see how sincere he was and how much he wanted to make things work between them.
"Cobb," she says, her body going limp as she sits on the bed next to him again. She stares at him and takes his hands in hers, holding them gently. "Oh, Cobb."
There are no more words to say between them, no battles to be fought or won, no past hurts that need to be dissected or parsed for meaning. They simply sit there, together.
For Marigold, it takes her back to the morning of Elijah's birth, when she was the one lying in a bed, and Cobb had been the one next to her, holding her hands.
"He's beautiful," Cobb had said with tears in his eyes. He was wearing a pair of tattered jeans and some beat-up motorcycle boots. His shirt was unbuttoned to mid-chest, and his hair looked slept on. "You did it, Gold," he said, bringing her hands to his lips. "Elijah James Hartley. He's going to be a star."
Marigold's eyes had drifted to the windows that looked onto a brick courtyard in Manhattan. She'd just given birth to her son, and she felt exhausted and elated. She nodded and glanced back at Cobb. "I don't want him to be a star," she'd said. "I just want him to be happy and whole. I never want him to feel like he has to go searching for something to make himself feel complete," she said pointedly. Her eyes caught fire as she remembered going into labor the day before and being rushed to the hospital alone.
"I'm sorry, Goldie.” Cobb leaned his head on her chest. "I'm so sorry I wasn't here."
Marigold had turned her face away from him again, refusing to yield so easily to the man who she'd counted on to be there at her side--the man who had, once again, gotten lost in his own needs and forsaken hers. And their son's. This new addition--this baby boy--made it all so much less forgivable. Marigold sighed.
"We needed you, Cobb," she said, trying not to cry or let the hitch that she felt in her throat give away her fear and anger. She needed to close herself off from that point on and become the kind of woman who could sustain herself and not rely on others for anything. She needed to be the firm backbone that Elijah could count on, the parent who would never let him down. "We needed you, and no one could find you."
Marigold needn't have worried; she didn't cry, but Cobb started to. His tears dampened the front of her hospital gown as she tried to ignore the fact that he reeked of marijuana and whiskey and cigars.
"I was in the studio," he croaked through his tears. "I was working on a song for you. And one for Elijah. They'll be on the next album. And then I'll be home with you. I drank, Goldie. I had a drink after we laid down the tracks, and then I had a couple more and I passed out. You don't know how sorry I am. I missed my son's birth, and I'll never forgive myself. I understand if you never forgive me, either." He wept openly, his head still on her chest.
She wanted to push him away in anger. She wanted to make him understand how she felt about his absence and his choices, but instead she put her long fingers into his unkempt hair and rubbed his scalp, slowly, soothingly. "Shh," Marigold said, training her eyes on the gray afternoon outside, her fingers working rhythmically through her husband's hair. "Shhhh," she whispered as a single leaf fell from a tree against the October sky.
"I can't make any of it up to you," Cobb says to her now in the bedroom on Shipwreck Key, tapping his thumbs against her hands as he holds them. "But I can tell you that the man I am now and the man I was then are not the same. And that I'm sorry for all of it."
The vision of that October sky thirty years prior fades from Marigold's view and she refocuses on the room they're in. It's a beautiful guest room in her beloved cottage near the beach. The walls are hung with framed watercolors and small pieces of art that she's gathered over the years. On the floor is a hand-knotted rug that she purchased in India; across the foot of the bed is a soft, expensive wool blanket bought in Iceland. This is her home. This place holds everything that's happened to her so far: family photos, souvenirs from her travels, every item that brings her comfort or joy. This is her life. This is her chance to do what she wants to do going forward, and to be who she wants to be.
She looks at Cobb. "I want you to get better," she says, her voice firm and direct. "Ineedyou to get better. So does Elijah. So let's make that happen, okay?"
A door shutters behind Cobb's eyes as he takes in her words. She hasn't said no and she hasn't said that she doesn't love him, but she certainly hasn't said that she wants to be with him. For now, all she's promised is that she'll be by his side as he gets back on his feet.
Marigold knows it’s not what he wants to hear—or at least notallthat he wants to hear—but she can only do what she can do. She can promise him that she’ll be here. She can provide him a safe, peaceful place to recover. She can offer him the friendship that she’s always held in her heart for him. As for the future…that’s still unwritten. For Marigold, each day is its own fresh start; another chance for them to grow and learn. She just can’t make him any promises—not yet.
And for the time being, that's going to have to be enough.
Cobb
It's slow going, the road to recovery, and in fact it’s so gradual that Cobb doesn't even realize it's happening until one day he's sitting on the front porch with his notebook on one knee, a pencil behind his ear, and his guitar resting in his lap. He strums the chords and listens to the waves like they're responding to him. The early February air still holds a hint of winter—but a balmy, tropical winter without the heavy humidity of summer.
"Hey, Dad," Elijah says, pulling up in the golf cart and parking in front of Marigold's bungalow. He's already packed and has a flight booked to head back home to London, because Marigold thinks it's best for him to get back to his regularly scheduled life rather than hanging around with his parents on a far-flung island much longer. "How are you feeling?"
Cobb stops strumming and smiles at his grown son. "Not bad, buddy. I think I'm truly on the mend, thanks to your cooking and to your mom letting me stay here for as long as she has. I feel my strength slowly coming back.”
Elijah sits on the top step of the porch and pulls one knee up, resting his elbow on it. "You think she's tired of us yet?"
"Not of you," Cobb says with a half-smile. "A mother's heart is full when her kids are around. But an ex-husband...maybe that doesn’t bring quite so much joy.” He laughs at his own joke and pulls the pencil from behind his ear so that he can scribble something in his notebook. "How's Athena?" Cobb looks up at Elijah as he writes something down.
