Marigold
An hour from Hong Kong
“Looks like I slept through breakfast,” she said to her mother groggily. “Are you hungry? I’ve got pastries from home.” From her backpack, she took out pineapple and roast pork buns, both slightly squashed.
Her mother didn’t answer.
Helen turned to her wearing an indecisive frown. “Should I cut my hair?”
“No.” Marigold was taken aback. “It looks pretty as it is.”
Her mother made a humming sound. That wasn’t the answer she had wanted to hear.
“I’m going to cut it,” decided Helen. “I’ll find a hairdresser after we land.”
“Is this because the old man thought you looked familiar?”
“Why should I care what some stranger says? I’ve always had my hair short.”
This was true. In the earliest photos Marigold had seen of her mother in America, Helen had short hair. She hadn’t grown it long again until only recently, after Marigold went to medical school.
Still, Marigold knew better.
“Are you ever going to tell me how you ended up as the cover girl for Peaksoy?”
Helen slid her window shade shut. “I told you before, I needed money. Back then, Peaksoy wasn’t what it is now—or else I’d have asked for more.” She sniffed. “It only happened once.”
“How?”
“I had a friend who knew someone.”
“The same friend who named you Helen?”
A beat. “Yes.”
Marigold tilted forward, propping an elbow over her tray table. “Was it Dad?” she asked.
Helen gave her an indecipherable look.
“Does that mean yes?”
Helen leaned back in her chair. Her eyes were two abacus beads, hard and calculating. “Why did you drop out of medical school?”
Her mother was a master at evading questions, but this was new. An answer for an answer. Marigold wasn’t prepared for that.
“I’m only taking the semester off—to be with Dad. And you.”
“Me?” Helen sniffed again. “I don’t need you watching over me.”
Marigold was too wise to argue with that. She passed her mother the roast pork bun. “I answered your question,” she said. “Now it’s your turn.”