Marigold

I stared at the body for quite some time before realizing, indeed, it was my wife. The shock had not quite set in when I was called a day prior, held up in a Days Inn arguing with what's considered concierge over the quality of my bath towels, and told by Cecilia she died during a visit to her sister's grave. Cecilia's voice wasn't firm, it never is, and she clearly was expecting a reaction out of me as she uttered she's gone, Will. She's gone. 

I felt a familiar emotion, some kind of feeling gnawing at my chest where I visualize a heart. It felt hollow, like a breeze could blow through me and its sound could vertebrate in my shell. It reminded me of Daniel, getting hit by his uncle's car a day after we'd come together as a neighborhood, playing Home Run Derby in the local Diamond. I had known Daniel all my life, and his Uncle Mortimer's alcoholism had not escaped that knowledge. It was never told me how awful it was, or of the complications with the faith his Uncle truly had. Yet I felt my blood turn cold watching his coffin lowered into his family plot at Silver Lake's minuscule Jewish Cemetery, the Mourner's Kaddish sung by a Rabbi I had never met, because I had never gone to Temple with Daniel while he was alive. It didn't sit well with me, none of it did, even the thought of Uncle Mortimer going to prison for a DUI instead of murder. In Silver Lake, there were very few Jews among us, and I had not fulfilled my contractual arrangement with God in hearing his words uttered. I felt through this, through trying to strengthen my ties to the faith, I could gain some clarity where Mortimer did not.

It was in the midst of a Yom Kippur morning service three years later that I met Marigold, or at least was finally introduced to her character. We had met prior during certain family parties around Silver Lake, but my first impression was always of annoyance. Her insistence on pranking the populous and retorting at simple questions with uncreative insults made her seem, well, unattractive to my twelve year old mind. It was here where I first saw her as more, not my better half but certainly a friend. She whispered into my ear about the boredom she was suffering from, how Rabbi Cohen can hear himself talk for hours. She made me snicker, which was an invitation in her eyes to keep whispering annoyances into my ears during services my family would start attending more.

I fell out of love with the faith the moment she stopped going, and I never realized it. Something felt off, as I was enjoying more of what Rabbi Cohen was preaching, but I was magically brainwashed by my friend on how much of a bore he was. I knew where she lived but she went to school the next town over in New Canaan, one of the prep schools my parents couldn't afford on an electrician's salary. I wondered if she would just fade into my memory, a reminder of why going to Temple can be a slog if there's no emotional attachment. I decided to move on, but Daniel's memory still hung in my head like Newton's Apple, and the emotions I felt that day staring at his coffin remained.

It wasn't until we were both in High School did we see each other again, and where I was made familiar with her sister Rachel's condition. Cerebral Palsy, the kind of thing you would either get a soft hand from the students pretending to be nice, which were normal, well adjusted students at Silver Lake High School. Or, in the extreme case of me defending Rachel, vicious mockery to the point of physical harm. The boys in question did get a suspension, but the damage to Rachel's psyche landed. She was hurt, and could only be relieved by Marigold's assistance. Defending that girl was probably one of the only kind things I’ve done in my life, and my reward was more time with Marigold. Despite Rachel's incessant screeching to communicate, I did not mind her. If anything, as I caught up again with Marigold, I grew fond of them as well. Marigold was a friend, someone I'd see in passing and have nice conversations with, but would also see the aftermath of elaborate pranks from. As were those boys for hurting her sister, Marigold was suspended for ruining the principal's exhaust by stuffing it with a tube of toothpaste. The sheen of the neon green and white dribbled onto the pavement, noticeable in the worst of ways. Because of this delinquent streak, Marigold was not seen as the “ideal mate” to many of the student body. Needless to say, we did not date in high school because, in her words, I was too mashugana for your scrawny ass. I thought it described her perfectly.

I dated Cecilia during Junior Year, the one Catholic who took an interest in pushing past the borders of her strict family decided to date a Jew. The novelty wasn't lost on me, but most of my firsts came with her. Every kiss, every cry, every little good and bad thing came when I was with her. There were inklings of things wrong, but those red flags don't signal off when you're young and in love. My anger towards all things driven by the loss of a childhood friend and petty annoyances, Cecilia's issues with her family and fighting against the faith. Both these things were our baggage, and they would not be pierced by anyone but our sweet Marigold. Marigold was there the entire time, rooting from the sidelines like a good cheerleader would, making both of us happy in our respective places. As college came around the bend, we said our fond farewells to each other. Cecilia and I eloped during our Senior Year at Penn State, drunkenly admitting how we were in love with each other at the Sigma Nu Halloween Party. The stench of my roommate Jack’s cologne whizzed around my nostrils, the quiet and implications of a couple going into a fraternity house bedroom felt almost ingrained at this point. Instead of the expected, Cecilia broke down. Her family’s stress had driven her to a breaking point, something she had kept from me for months, but something I was keenly aware of. You’re the only one I have, Willy. The only one who's tried to get me. I’m alone, Will. I hate it so much. Between my drunken stupor and my young adult logic, I spat out a similar statement without fully understanding it: Maybe we should be alone together! 

 This decision, like many in my life, I regret. It is because I married my first love so quickly that I did not reach my real one in time, more time to be spent with Marigold and her nudging my sides to remind me I'm an asshole. With Cecilia, we degraded quickly, almost too quickly to be measured. Yet we lasted a whole seven years, no children but seven years all by ourselves. Her family urged her to rejoin the faith, to find Jesus in the face of a cruel shyster like me, trying to make ends meet in an uninspired office job outside of Philly. We had tried for a child twice, a miscarriage the first time which drove each of us into a depression. The Mourner's Kaddish was sung by Rabbi Cohen, who had driven down by my request. The people left our home with nothing but simple condolences and you'll have another baby, trust me. Marigold was there, but Rachel had been left home due to, what I would discover later, cancer of the brain. A harmful degeneration, as genetic as her sister’s disorder. The awareness of Rachel’s mortality clearly changed her, but not enough to not put on the same show she usually did. She joked, consoled, made the day somehow bright despite the bad. She put her troubles aside, all the worry she would have about one person in her life, and gave me the hug I needed. She whispered to me after, you have a heart in there, Tin Man. Remember that. Cecilia could see, in that very moment at our baby’s funeral, that we were truly wrong for each other. Within days, the resentment had set in. Any attempt to strengthen our bond like before was cut short. Our second try for a child was cut off by our impromptu divorce, an argument spiraling out of control when I returned home after crying in my office's bathroom for an hour. I cried for the child, I cried for something to make sense when it didn’t. I didn’t even care for the public embarrassment at my office, all I thought of was the past and how I couldn’t change a thing. I thought of Daniel, how he would think of me if he saw me at my lowest, at the very moment Cecilia broke her glass against the dining room table. She was more red than all the times she had cried for her family’s forgiveness, something broken on the inside we both didn’t understand. She had yelled to me you're nothing but a bitter, angry man! I replied with I know, but you married one! 

I quit my job the next day and returned to Silver Lake, the bitter sting of nostalgia hitting my nose as I arrived at my parent's home. Welcomed into the community again, I called Marigold. We're done, now. And that's all that matters. She saw right through my bullshit, all that matters is that you're happy, you idiot. A warm smile came across my face in what felt like years.

I would not work for the next month outside of odd jobs around town, spending my time with Marigold and helping take care of Rachel during her final moments. Seeing that her parents and her needed assistance, all I could do was follow their orders. I felt obligated, not just to Marigold or to her folks, but to Rachel herself. If defending her was the only good thing I did, then I wanted to stay. The morning of Rachel’s passing, Marigold and I stayed by their side, and I stayed by Marigold's as she broke down in my arms. Her parent's, their parent's, had a rough go of it. And as Jews, in our small tribe at Silver Lake, we all understood their pain. We all went to the Synagogue together, I didn't even ask for my parents to come, they just did. It was during the funeral, like Daniel's, where I felt that hollowness. That empty bubble inside of me. I looked to her and I could tell she felt the same. I couldn't stand it, I didn't want to feel this way anymore. 

I worked up the courage to ask her to marry me the next day. I told her she was the only one who made sense, the only one who made me care about God. She took a pause at that, stared at the sky for a moment as I called her name. She broke her own silence saying God doesn't care, Will. I care about you, though. I wiped coming tears from my face as she walked up to me. I held her there for what seemed like hours, a light breaking through the cloudy day's sky. It felt like holy matrimony had a meaning, a joining of people in destiny's knot. For years we had a home together, a way to complain about the citizens of Silver Lake and the gossip from the Synagogue. I watched time freeze, it stayed still in that idyllic little home near the Post Road. I had realized how much I had known about Marigold than I did about Cecilia, how easy it all just clicked. She said black, I said white, and somehow that didn’t matter. We made our marriage work, and any jab at my character made her open to one as well. And as I worked my way up into a new office job and gained some sort of stability, she was losing hers. More funerals for family, more meetings at Sloan Kettering, more nights where she didn’t sleep from headaches. I had to go to a conference out in Trenton, the lack of funds for securing me a stay at the Marriott was not lost on my employer or me. Yet I went anyway, and the last words I ever spoke to my dying wife were I’ll be back Tuesday. 

Yeah? Well, I’ll be here when you get back! 

I stared at the body that was once my wife, in the faith named for her Grandfather Mikhail, as beautiful as the flower of her actual namesake. I say to her that I came back, and with no more tears I leave. Cecilia waited for me in the parking lot next to an old Dodge Pick-Up her father had owned. She looked the same, the years treating her well unlike myself. 

You look good, given the occasion. I simply shrug and tell her the same. We embraced, and drove up to a diner to catch up. We attempted some reconciliation, some idea that we’re different people and that’s how life is. But what about God? Cecilia took a bite out of her burnt rye toast, posturing that question to me. What about him? 

She stared me dead in the eye, something from her years of repressing this entity’s existence thrown right back at me: What about God leading people to each other? What about fate? 

I thought of Daniel and Mortimer, of Rachel’s existence, of the pain Cecilia’s family had put her through without my knowledge. I took a glance at the sky, and like before there was a break. If fate led me to you, then that’s all I need to know.