A Fall of Marigolds

This section recounts the primary trauma each woman faces: for Clara, the Triangle Shirtwaist fire, and for Taryn, the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center. Clara’s memories of the fire reveal just how chaotic and traumatic the real event must have been. Clara worked in the Asch Building, the same building that housed the Triangle Shirtwaist Company, which occupied the eighth, ninth, and tenth floors. Clara was on the elevator to the ninth floor when the fire broke out. When the elevator doors opened, “the car instantly filled with as many people as it could hold” (86). However, the elevators soon quit working, the doors to the stairwells were locked, there were no alarms, and the fire escape quickly collapsed under the weight of those seeking to escape. Many of the workers jumped out of the windows; none survived. In all, 146 people died, ranging in age from 14 to 43. Just escaping the tragedy would have been traumatic, but for Clara to have actually seen Edward, “[f]ire wreathing his neck,” holding the hand of a young girl as “they took to the sky” (87) must have been devastating. A devastation compounded by her realization that he would have been safe had he not been waiting to meet Clara herself. Clara’s trauma is multilayered and more complex than had been apparent in previous chapters.

The parallels between Taryn and Clara continue, as Taryn similarly remembers the traumatic event that changed the entire trajectory of her life. The first plane hit the North Tower of the World Trade Center at 8:46 a.m. between the 93th and 99th floors; the second plane hit the South Tower at 9:03 a.m. between the 77th and 85th floors. The devastation was immense and further compounded by the collapse of the buildings, which sent a wall of toxic dust and debris roiling across the area. Like Clara, Taryn witnesses people jumping rather than staying inside the burning buildings; Clara is almost injured by those plummeting toward the sidewalk, just as Taryn is almost injured by the dust and debris, saved only by Mick. Both women feel responsible for the deaths of their loved ones in the tragedies and are crippled with guilt.

The main difference between Clara and Taryn is the legitimacy of their grief. Unlike Clara, who hides her grief because she feels as if she is not entitled to it, Taryn’s grief is not only expected but respected. She notes, for example, that when she turns down interview requests, “[n]o one in the media pressured [her] to reconsider; that was one of the kindnesses extended to those […] who had lost someone [they] loved on 9/11. [They] were not made to feel guilty for declining to speak of [their] heartaches” (91).

Similarly, Meissner makes it clear that Taryn is indeed suffering more than Clara. Taryn has been in her “in-between” place for 10 years, not six months like Clara. Furthermore, though Clara assumes that Edward was on the factory floor because of her, she does not know that for sure, just as she did not know for sure if he was attracted to her. Taryn, on the other hand, not only loses her husband and the father of her child but had actually directed her husband to meet her at Windows on the World, on the 106th floor of the North Tower. Had she not done so, Kent would have most likely been in his office on the 34th floor, and 90% of those who were at or above the point of impact died. This explains why Taryn briefly considers letting herself be consumed by “the wall of debris” so that she could “be where Kent was” (104); only the thought of her unborn child stops her.