A Long and Lonely Mile

Chapter 23

The Waterford Museum served as both a business and a home for the Casey Family for many years. Downstairs was marked off for exhibits while the upstairs quarters were kept private. In order for Marigold and her brothers to return to the comfort of their home, they would have to step over a long, velvet-wrapped cord at the base of a narrow wooden staircase at the museum's heart. Every day for seventeen years, little Marigold would pass up and over the cord, leaving behind the plethora of paintings, grainy black and white photos and cheaply constructed figurines below her. Parting was never sorrowful, for they would always be there to greet her in the morning after breakfast and to bid her goodnight at the end of the day.

Before Marigold befriended Giselle at the beginning of junior high, she didn't believe that her life was anything out of the ordinary. Spending time with the Zipps in a house that functioned traditionally, however, made her yearn for normalcy. The Schoolhouse and later, her bungalow, were therefore channels for both rebellion and nostalgia. While she had spent years dreaming of being an average Waterford girl in an average Waterford bungalow off Main Street; she remained a Casey. A landmark in and of herself.

The events of Halloween 2014 were rarely mentioned. Once everyone in Waterford learned of the gas leak that occurred after everyone returned home safely from the museum's annual party, Emmett and Saffron Casey were laid to rest, the newspapers were archived, and life moved on as it always manages to do. Our story opened with a brief summary of Marigold's inheritance of the Casey Schoolhouse- the one piece of history that her father was too timid to resurrect and lay bare before an eager public.
The Schoolhouse was her identity; the closest thing to a child she had ever anticipated on having. Well, that's the funny thing about endings, isn't it? Even they, in all their finality, must have beginnings as well. The final segment of our story opens on the day that Marigold truly began to let go of the Casey name and occupied her heart and mind with the legacy of her married name instead...

It happened on the first of December. One month before Marigold handed over the keys to her bungalow, one month before she locked up the schoolhouse for good. William was having a routine checkup with his cardiologist and, according to his texts, all was well. Instead of sitting in the waiting room like she normally did, Marigold passed the time by making a quick drop-in appointment across the hall. She returned several minutes before he stepped around the corner. All the while, her fingers longed to twist and crease the paper in her hands. But no, it would have to remain pristine. The nerves that were building up inside of her were nothing compared to her desire to make everything perfect for William.

"How did it go, Sweetheart?" She stood, still handling the document as if it were as fragile as damp tissue paper.

"It is exactly as we hoped for!" William exclaimed, "The monthly checkups are changing to tri-monthly and I won't need exploratory surgery again for another year. If nothing changes before then, of course." They breathed a mutual sigh of relief, embraced and started for the door, all smiles. Surely, nothing would change. Leaving Waterford for a quiet life in the country would sever him from his guilt, right? As William reached for her, he bumped the paper slightly and Marigold passed it to him in the place of her hand. "Is this for me?"

"It is," she followed behind him like an eager shadow as they stepped into the large, glass atrium where the hallways forked. He stopped abruptly in his tracks and read its contents thoroughly by the light of one of the window's many sunbeams. "Those take-home tests are usually pretty faulty. I wanted to do it here, just to be sure." Without so much as a word, he turned and gave her a deep, tearful kiss. "You're so sensitive!" Marigold beamed, caressing his damp, smiling face.

"You're pregnant?!" His blue eyes seemed to resurrect the same unbridled joy that they possessed when Marigold approached him at the altar.

"Aha! So, you can speak! I like to think of it as... we're pregnant. But yes! Two weeks in. She was probably conceived when we broke that headboard. We can say she started with a bang, just like Roxie Hart!" An offended cafeteria worker rolled past them with a cart of jiggling orange Jello cups. "And if you're worried about work, they totally manufacture maternity beekeeping suits as well-" William cut off her comment with a second kiss.