Marigold

My grandma always said that my name seemed more like a punishment than a name. She made mention of this too often, but that made me like it even more. It felt like the best inside joke ever. My mama tells a beautiful story about its origin, that she’d been handed a marigold at the market downtown right after she found out she was pregnant. She said it seemed like an affirmation that everything would work out just as it should.

After that, she became enamored with them. She planted them in the garden box while awaiting me, her muse. Sometimes we joked that our last name was Perennial, and we’d stand on the porch in our slippers watching them sway softly in the wind. When I left for college, she gave me a credit card for emergencies and a marigold plant to sit in my window.

My first real boyfriend called me Mari. I liked it. I’d never had a nickname before, I was just Marigold. I felt like I’d been given an invitation into the world of romance, having a nickname. The same way that boys have their full names reserved for their girlfriend and their mama. A rite of passage. We’d sit on the lawn in the sun and I wondered if mama had ever experienced this with my daddy. He’d made it about seven months into her pregnancy before he left. She planted seven more marigold plants that day, as a promise to herself. She said on days when she needed extra strength she’d muddle a marigold into her tea, and she imagined that she was giving me flower power every time she did it. And because I’d grown up hearing about all this magic that’d been made in my honor, I walked around the world thinking that I was actually a little magic myself, that I had fairies smiling on me for good luck or something like that.

I knew I was smart. I had always been. I blossomed in college, into a version of myself that I liked even more, now that I had new tools and resources to encourage me into doing whatever I pleased. Joshua Amaranth told me how smart I was all the time, but especially after our ENC 1102 class. He made lots of acute observations about things, like how the flags in my books weren’t Post-It ones like his, I smiled every time I raised my hand, and how I seemed to use lots of gel pens. I told him my mom worked in a gel pen factory.

His eyebrows touched. “Really?”

I laughed. “No. She’s a barista.”

The brows returned to their rightful place and he laughed. “You’re funny.”

He told me later that was the moment he knew he wanted to ask me on a date. When he did, I eagerly accepted, and nearly ran back to my dorm to tell my roommate.

A few months into dating, I looked up his astrological signs to see if we were compatible. I was a Pisces rising, and him a Virgo. I thought of a song that my mama always played, “Danny’s Song” by Loggins & Messina. She loved it because of a particular line, “Pisces, Virgo rising is a very good sign, strong and kind.” She said I was such a Pisces rising, and even though I wasn’t sure what that meant at the time, I loved it nonetheless.

I was sure that this was a positive sign, but I had to learn that there is such a thing as coincidence. Or irony, I guess. Just depends on what you believe in.

After we broke up, I wondered sometimes if I was unintentionally training him for real life. He often seemed surprised at what I knew, and I was often surprised at what he didn’t. Like when I put Downy in the washer or a Walmart bag in my trash can. I’d explain while he listened like it was educational, detached but mildly curious.

He commented on my appearance once, not intentionally or anything, I didn’t think. I saw a shirt I liked while we were shopping for spring break at Lake Tahoe with his family, and he said he didn’t think it would fit me.

I told my mom and I could hear her frowning into the phone.

“Women hold softness in their bodies in ways that men cannot. I will make no apologies for being tender.”

I knew she was right, of course, but I still was insecure as I flew to meet his family for the first time. Their lake house was the kind of home that would be on the opposite side of town where I lived. They were very nice and welcoming, but they talked about places I’d never been and experiences I’d never had.

“You’ll have to come with us to Breckenridge,” his mom said. “It’s a sin you haven’t been, honey. But don’t worry, we girls can do the bunny slope. That’s where I like to stay.” She winked like we were conspiring together and Josh’s dad laughed with a boom like it had to fill up every square inch of the room.

“Sounds good to me,” I tried to laugh in that noncommittal cool way that people seem to do but I thought it sounded more like a whimper.

After a day of sun, I’d wanted to go to bed early, and we stood together brushing our teeth.

“They really like you,” Josh said, teasingly bumping my hip with his. “And that is unusual.”

All I could think was that I’d been passive and quiet.

While I laid awake, I thought about how he’d only introduced me as Mari, and suddenly my mind felt like a thread unraveling, it was too fast to keep up. Marigold, some sort of hippie-ass name. Him buying me Post-It flags when mine were almost out, my Christmas present being a gift card to the one fancy salon in our college town.

I startled him awake when I touched his shoulder. “Do your parents know my name is Marigold?”

He blinked a few times as though he couldn’t figure out if he was dreaming or not. “What?”

“Do your parents know my name is Marigold?” I repeated.

“Uhhh, I’m not sure I’ve ever thought about it. I’ve just always called you Mari,” he said. “Why?”

“I was just thinking about how they probably don’t even know my full name.”

He laughed. “We can tell them tomorrow if you’re worried. A copy of your driver’s license even if you’d like, my dear.”

“Okay,” I said, and he rolled back over, returning comfortably to sleep.

First loves are often doomed, but I thought that was okay. I never turned in my first draft of papers. I’d make improvements, adjustments, additions until I was happy with what I had. But when it happened it felt like all the magic that had made for me evaporated from thin air. I saw him on campus only when I looked like I’d been through some sort of awful exercise boot camp that people seem to like for whatever reason. I called him the first time I got properly drunk, and instead of picking me up himself, he called my roommate to take care of me. It stung like a bee does, at first, the pain seems so present until it fades so gradually that one day you realize it doesn’t at all.

When I got home for the summer, my mom was eager to show me all the new additions to our house, but she was especially fixated on a botany book in a way I couldn’t figure out.

“Mama, what is up with you and this book?” I finally asked.

“Baby, I didn’t want to tell you this while you were together,” mama said cautiously. “But an Amaranth is a weed.”