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 27-30Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 27 Summary
As Clara waits for Ethan to return to the hotel, she realizes that if she “was truly to let go of Edward, [she] needed to do so in as complete a way as [she] could” (251). She is frightened of the prospect, but it is not “the same dread” (251) she felt when preparing to leave the island earlier that day. Ethan tells Clara that she does not need to go to Scotland to break the hold the island has over her, but Clara disagrees. Ethan is shocked when Clara asks to drive by the building where Edward and the others died. The panic overtakes her again when they get close to the building, but she nonetheless asks the driver to stop and goes to stand on the sidewalk where the bodies had lain. Clara is surprised that she no longer feels “despair” but only “regret” (255). She and Ethan next drive to the main office of The New York Times to find Edward’s obituary. Clara feels better than she has in months, and she and Ethan hold hands on the way to the newspaper. Clara is shocked to discover, from the obituary, that Edward had been engaged to be married.
Chapter 28 Summary
Clara is mortified by her discovery, even more so when she realizes that both Ethan and Dolly must have already known. She wonders if she misunderstood Edward’s behavior to her, that in her “naïveté [she] had mistaken his genteel manner for physical attraction” (260). She feels that she had “been a fool,” a “silly girl who believed the one she loved, loved her in return” (261).
Clara is furious with Ethan and Dolly, accusing them of being insensitive and cruel. Ethan argues, “Sometimes the truth hurts […]. But it’s still the truth” (263). Clara is even more horrified that she has sent Andrew off the island with Lily’s letter; she does not want him to feel the way she does now. Ethan begs Clara not to allow this new knowledge to keep her on the island, but Clara is so numb from grief and shock she can barely summon the strength to argue with him. She does not even react when Ethan declares his affection for her. When Clara returns to Ellis Island, she is shocked to discover that the island no longer feels like a sanctuary to her, the familiar in-between place where she could exist without pain. Clara’s supervisor brings her a package, and Clara realizes that it is Lily’s scarf, that Andrew had left it for her as a gift without ever opening it.
Chapter 29 Summary
Stunned by the return of the scarf, Clara reads the note Andrew left for her, which makes it clear that he never even opened the package and did not read Lily’s letter to him. Clara seems unsure of how to feel about everything that has happened, not just the return of the scarf, but her discovery about Edward and the roles that Dolly and Ethan played. She does agree with Ethan, however, that Andrew “wasn’t meant to know” about Lily’s deception. Ethan wonders if he and Dolly made a mistake in insisting that Clara know the truth about Edward, but Dolly is unrepentant, telling Clara, “You needed to know […]. If you never speak to me again, I’ll say it to my dying day. You needed to know” (274). When Clara decides to take the job in Scotland, Ethan is upset, arguing that her decision is just “a different kind of escape” (273). Clara does not feel that way, and neither does Dolly. Dolly is delighted by Clara’s decision and finally convinces Clara to go out dancing with her and the other nurses the next day. Clara agrees and finally leaves Ethan and Dolly in the cafeteria, exhausted from the day’s many emotional upheavals.
Chapter 30 Summary
Clara awakens the next day still sad over the previous day’s events but also more confident. She writes to her father to tell him that she will take the job in Scotland. Despite her newfound energy, however, she worries that she is trading one form of escape for another, especially considering Ethan’s reaction to her plans. Dolly, however, reassures her and points out that Ethan has feelings for Clara, which is most likely why he does not want her to leave.
Clara wonders if she should trade wards again to avoid being near Ethan. Dolly points out that there is no reason to cut Ethan out of her life altogether, but Clara is confused by her lingering love for Edward, her attraction to Andrew, and her burgeoning feelings for Ethan. She tells Dolly she needs “a break from all that,” but Dolly reminds her, “All that is all there is” (281). Clara gives her notice, agreeing to stay until she leaves for Scotland, and gets permission to go home first for a few days to say goodbye to her family. She does switch rotations, but she makes a point of seeking Ethan out and thanking him for all his kindness. Ethan apologizes for the things he said to her and makes her promise to say goodbye before she leaves Ellis Island for good.
Chapters 27-30 Analysis
These chapters witness both Clara’s recovery and a new blow. She seems much stronger after she manages to get over the first hurdle, leaving the island, and she seems to experience a real sense of closure when she returns to where Edward died, realizing that she couldn’t have saved him and doesn’t wish that she “hadn’t met him” (255). This seems to bring her closer to Ethan who, at first holding her hand to soothe her, continues to do so after Clara has calmed down.
This new composure is quickly shattered by her discovery that Edward had a fiancée. Clara’s embarrassment stems not only from having spent six months mourning a man who seemingly was not even interested in her, but that she has again believed she was loved, just as with her other romantic experiences. Her shame is intensified at the realization that this pain is worse than the grief she felt, and that she had condemned Andrew to experiencing the same pain. She had “sent Andrew Gwynn off Ellis Island that very day, with the same crushing evidence of deception that Ethan had just placed before [her]” (263).
When Clara returns to the island, it is clear that it is no longer a sanctuary for her. Though Clara cannot see this at first, this is a good thing. She is healing, and as a nurse, Clara should realize that the moment when the pain is the worst is often the moment that heralds the return of health. Indeed, Clara does not return to her room to wallow in her grief, as she has been doing the past six months. Instead, she agrees to have coffee with Ethan. This is itself a sign that she has changed for the better, even though she feels “the punishing heat of betrayal” rather than “the bracing coolness of mourning” and “its numbing chill” (264). Indeed, Clara’s pain indicates she is no longer numb, that she is finally, after six months, allowing herself to heal.
Neither Clara nor the reader can reconcile whether ignorance is bliss or if the truth sets one free. Clara’s devastation in finding out that Edward was engaged to be married is agonizing, compounded by her realization that what Ethan and Dolly had done to her—or for her, in Dolly’s view—was exactly what she did to Andrew. When she reads Andrew’s note, it seems clear that it is a good thing that he did not know the truth about Lily, that he is grateful for having loved and, in his mind, having been loved by her. He was comforted by his connection with Clara, just as she saw justification for her feelings for Edward in Andrew’s love for Lily.
Clara’s grief at what she sees as her own foolishness over Edward does not return her to the state she was in when she first came to the island. Nor does she hold on to her anger at Dolly and Ethan, indicating that they were not wrong to have forced her to confront the truth about Edward. She wakes the next day with a sense of purpose and a desire for growth, symbolized by her deep sleep and her unusual hunger. Similarly, her desire to separate herself from Ethan also represents that growth. She knows on some level that to move forward with Ethan now would merely be exchanging one relationship for another, just as she did, at first, with Andrew. However, she does not cut Ethan off but handles the situation both kindly and maturely, leaving room for hope and realizing that Ethan had given Clara “[her] life back” (282).
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