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This gets a warm, deep laugh from Elijah. He looks around, taking in his surroundings. “I haven’t been here in a while, but it always makes me feel like we’re at home in the U.K.”
Marigold feels a warm flush of pride. “I know. It’s not very in-step with the tropical island vibe or the whole pirate thing, but it’s my happy place.”
“It’s perfect. It’s so you.” Elijah picks up his coffee and stands, stretching one arm over his head. “Do you mind if I shower and lose the winter clothes? Then we can go out and explore.”
“Absolutely. We can decorate the tree later on. I’ll make a Sunday roast.” Marigold starts to mentally comb her refrigerator and larder, making a shopping list in her head.
Elijah walks by her chair and puts a hasty kiss on top of his mom’s head as he carries his coffee mug with him to the guest room.
In the front room, the tree lays on its side, wrapped like a mummy. How had Elijah managed to get all the way from London to Shipwreck Key without her knowing? And with a Christmas tree in tow, no less? She shakes her head, smiling at the image of her son shelling out cash to a tree lot in Destin—probably more than he should have paid—and then dragging it onto a boat for the ride out into the Gulf of Mexico. Could it be that she’s the luckiest woman on the planet? Blessed with a huge, interesting life and a child who is just as sweet and loving at thirty as he was when he was a little boy?
The sound of the shower comes from the end of the hall and Marigold picks up her phone. With a few keystrokes she’s into her Instagram account, and she steels herself for what she’ll find. The comments on her latest post are mixed: Carol from Tennessee thinks that she’s “Total fire!!! Such a perfect representation of post-menopausal women everywhere!” (Marigold takes this as a compliment, but knows it’s not entirely true; she works hard to keep her figure and her looks, which is like fighting an intense uphill battle, as every woman over forty-five knows). Helena from Los Angeles is all about “Girl power and representation for the oldies,” (Marigold nearly gags), “but COME ON with all those filters. No way is a woman your age looking like that.”
Annoyance flares up in Marigold, though she’s trying to stay as neutral as possible when she reads the comments of these strangers. When she’d decided to use whatever platform she still had in the world to step out onto the stage and make a statement about aging gracefully, she’d honestly been unaware of the depth of cruelty of other humans. For most of her life, Marigold has been treated the way beautiful people everywhere are treated: she’s gotten things for free, people smile at her wherever she goes, and men have glanced at her appraisingly and appreciatively. But not so anymore. At about the age of forty she realized that the eyes of passerby were trailing after younger women. That the men her age were all dating women ten to twenty years their junior. That any time she posted a photo of herself or saw that someone else had posted one, the comments ranged from extremely kind and flattering, to absolutely horrible and hurtful. Elijah had informed her at the time that “People are trolls, mum—no, quite literally—they are,” and she’d had to really grasp and accept that. Sometimes the commentary on her graying hair, her aging neck, and the way she refuses to “dress her age” are absolutely scathing. But the idea that women should have to accept being placed on some sort of back burner just because their childbearing years are over is unacceptable to her.
“You’re not hot, grandma,” an account with no real name, just the moniker ProudHog777 says. “Why would any man want to hit that old leather mitt when he can have a bangin’ young woman?”
Marigold sighs deeply and sets the phone on the table. She drinks her coffee for a moment, digesting the onslaught of opinions coming at her from every direction.
And indeed, whyshoulda man want to spend his time with a woman of a certain age?Well,Marigold thinks,how about the wealth of life experience? The fact that women grow more solid and know themselves better as they age? How about the fact that many women become financially secure in their own right, and also more comfortable with their body and the way they share it with you?But she says none of that to ProudHog777, because really, he’s just some troll, as Elijah says, and he probably doesn’t have the privilege of spending time withanyreal live women, age notwithstanding, therefore his anger towards her is truly anger at all the women that he can’t have.
Instead of replying to any of the comments, Marigold closes out the app and locks her phone, pushing it aside. She’ll deal with it all later, and it will become fodder and fuel for the book she’s been working on. But for now, she’s got bigger fish to fry. Elijah is on Shipwreck Key, it’s nearly Christmas, and she has tamales to make, a visit from Sinterklaas to orchestrate, and mugs of tea to drink by the tree as she listens to her son talk about his life and his travels.
Everything else can wait, because for Marigold, nothing matters more than being there for the people you love.
Athena
It’s been months since Athena Hudson found out that Diego Santana was engaged to be married the night he took her virginity. The memory of it—all of it—still makes her visibly cringe, and not just in the way that people mean when they say something is cringey. Athena doesn’t just recoil inwardly at the memory of how hard she’d fallen for the gorgeous Diego, or the way she let him take her back to his apartment after their first date, but she actually feels her stomach twist like a gnarled tree branch, and she squeezes her eyes shut, trying to push away the bad feeling that even just his name brings to her.
The whole thing had sent her fleeing to Shipwreck Key, right to her mother’s house on the beach at the very same time that her younger sister was involved in a bar shooting in New York that brought her down to the island to get back on her feet as well. Essentially, Shipwreck Key has been a place of recovery and rejuvenation for all of the Hudson women: Athena has been trying to forget Diego; her sister Harlow has been doing Zoom therapy and learning to feel safe again in an unsafe world; and their mother, the former First Lady, is nursing her own broken heart after their father’s death and the revelation that he had a second family tucked away in France.
Marooned With a Book, the shop that Ruby Hudson opened on the island, has been a place of total respite for all of them. Almost instantly, Ruby formed a book club that’s filled with other local women, and they’ve become fast friends. Sometimes they read the book they’ve picked but never even get around to talking about it because there’s so much else to discuss. As far as Athena is concerned, they’re chosen family and she loves them all—even after only being on the island for six months.
"Oh, wow..." Athena catches a glimpse of a young man outside the window of the shop as he strolls down Seadog Lane with a cup of coffee from The Scuttlebutt in hand. She's holding a stack of twenties at the register as she and Tilly Byer get ready to open the bookshop for the day, but she's just gotten totally sidetracked by the sight of a gorgeous man her age, which is not something she sees much on Shipwreck Key. Her mom has taken the day off to attend a co-therapy Zoom session with Harlow and her therapist, and Athena is in charge of the shop.
Tilly looks up from counting change and follows Athena's gaze. "Ah, I see our fair maiden has discovered the island visitor." She's watching Athena with amusement.
"Who is that?" Athena finally tears her eyes away from the man. His tanned limbs are visible from under a white t-shirt and black shorts, and he’s got Converse on his feet and an unruly mop of coppery brown hair on his head. As his face turns from profile into full view, Athena sees that he's got eyes that are a light, unusual shade of mint green. He’s stunning.
Tilly is holding a roll of quarters in one hand, and her hip is resting against the counter. "That's Marigold's kid--Elijah. His parents are famous, your parents are famous...don't you guys all know each other already or something?"
Athena looks surprised, and she ignores Tilly's facetious question. "Marigold didn't tell us her son was coming."
"And yet, there he is," Tilly says dryly, nodding her head at Marigold, who steps out of a shop across the street to join him. "Out strolling with his mom."
"You know him?" Athena blinks, admiring again the way his tanned skin looks against the white cotton of his shirt.
"He's visited before. I would say he was cute if I were into dudes, but I'm not." She shrugs like she couldn't care less, then bangs the roll of quarters on the counter, breaking the wrapper and dumping the coins into the change drawer. "He is nice, though. When I was about ten, he came to visit and my grandpa let him take me on a boat with his parents. I think I had a weird, confused crush on him because I didn't know yet that I was allowed to like girls. As it turns out, he always wanted a kid sister, and I guess I fit the bill."
Athena laughs at this. "His parents were both here? I thought Marigold had been divorced forever."
"She has. But Cobb Hartley visits every so often. I've seen him a few times." Tilly tries to sound cool, but Athena can tell that she's anything but unimpressed by a star of Cobb's magnitude showing up in their tiny island.
"Hmm." Athena narrows her eyes at Elijah as he walks down the street next to Marigold. "How old is he?"
"Uhhh." Tilly squints her eyes. "When I was ten, I think he was about nineteen, so I guess that would make him...thirty-ish?" She makes a face. "Pretty old."
"Well, I'm twenty-four, so he's not too old for me." Athena instantly blushes as the words cross her lips. She hasn't meant to show her hand to Tilly, but has instead been hoping that her interest in Elijah Hartley sounds innocent and curious rather than fan-girly.
