55 pages • 1 hour read
Susan MeissnerA Fall of Marigolds
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2014A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 25-26Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 25 Summary: “Taryn”
This next chapter leaves Clara briefly and continues Taryn’s story. Taryn describes the aftermath of the collapse of the South Tower, especially the silence, noting, “[O]ur mouths and lungs were filled with a million fragments of former lives and purposes. No one could move air past their vocal cords” (228). The florist, Mick, helps Taryn get into the florist’s van to protect them from the toxic dust and fumes. Taryn is numb with grief, blaming herself for Kent’s death. Mick tries to get Taryn to understand that they are going to have to get out of the van, that the other tower is going to collapse, and they are in danger. Mick is able to get Taryn out, and the North Tower collapses as they are running away. Mick gets Taryn to the hospital but, once Mick leaves, Taryn leaves without being treated, hoping against hope that Kent somehow made it out.
Once she arrives home, she sees a series of messages and voicemails from Kent. He was waiting for her at the restaurant, and two things are clear from his last message: First, he believed Taryn was in the elevator at the time of the attack and, second, he decided to jump. His last text message states, “Only one way out now. I love you, Taryn. I’m coming” (237). Taryn collapses from grief. She admits that she doesn’t really remember the first few weeks after the attacks, just that her family and friends rallied around her, and the news of her pregnancy helped ease their collective grief. Now, 10 years later, Taryn knows she must talk to her daughter, that she “had questions that needed answers” (239). Taryn considers attending the memorial ceremony, then receives a phone call from Mick: He has her scarf.
Chapter 26 Summary: “Clara”
This chapter shifts back to Clara, as she returns to the mainland for the first time since the fire. Clara’s anxiety and panic continue as she and Ethan make their way to where she is meeting her father. They drive close to the former Triangle Shirtwaist Factory and Clara’s tension increases, a “heavy weight” on the verge of “consuming” her (243). Ethan reassures her that every time she does this it will get easier for her. Ethan leaves her at the Hotel Albert with her father, promising to return to meet her in two hours. As she walks in to meet her father, Clara realizes just how far she has come: She is “off the island,” only “three blocks away from where hell had opened up right in front of [her],” and she was still going, causing “an unfamiliar confidence […] to rise up from a slumbering place inside […]” (245).
Though Clara thought her family was unaware of her suffering, she realizes that she must have said more than she intended in her letters to her sister. Furthermore, her father is clearly aware of how much effort it took for Clara to leave the island. He also believes it is time for Clara to find another job, that working at Ellis Island has prevented her “from moving on from the fire” (247). Clara gets a bit angry, even telling her father that she is a grown woman, with the right to decide where she wants to live and what she wants to do. To her surprise, her father agrees with her and suggests instead taking a position as a private nurse for a friend of his, a professor whose wife is very ill. They are traveling to Scotland for a year and would hire Clara to care for the wife during that time, giving Clara the opportunity to see Europe, but most importantly, get her “off that island” (249). Clara promises to think about it, and her father tells her she has a week to decide, as the professor and his wife are leaving the first week in October.
Chapters 25-26 Analysis
These two chapters parallel each other, as both are concerned with what happens after a tragedy is over, but life must still go on. Clara is on the road to recovery. Although it is painful, she is able to leave the island and feels a burgeoning pride in her own bravery. She also asserts her independence, telling her father that she is in charge of her future but realizing that if she is to be taken seriously, she must get past her grief and prepare for some kind of future, even if it is not the one she had first envisioned when leaving Pennsylvania. This explains why Clara finds the prospect of leaving Ellis Island “terrifying” and “exhilarating” (250). The chapter ends with Clara and her father preparing to eat their meal, suggesting that Clara’s future is still uncertain—she has made no commitments—but hopeful. She has left the island and is now considering leaving the country altogether—this time to grow, not to escape.
Taryn is in a different place. Unlike Clara, who had no real relationship with Edward, Taryn has not only lost her husband and the father of her child but must also live with the knowledge that her husband died thinking she was dead as well. This explains why Taryn is still stuck in her in-between place 10 years later. Though she does not suffer the same debilitating panic as Clara, Taryn has hidden her pain and grief as well, burying it so deep that her own daughter does not even know the story. Meissner says less about Taryn’s suffering than she does Clara because such anguish is almost incomprehensible; Taryn notes, “Time ceases to have substance when you are flattened by despair” (237). As the chapter ends, Taryn realizes that she must move on, for her daughter’s sake. Meissner’s choice to end Taryn’s chapter on a new development signals the beginning of a new story for Taryn, that she is no longer “flattened by despair,” and mourning does not have to mean everything else ceases.
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