A Fall of Marigolds

by Meissner, Susan

  I stayed a moment longer, blew the stone a kiss, and then turned back to the waiting cab.

  Thirty-Seven

  I returned to Lily’s room with one purpose: to erase from the world the last remnants of her deception.

  I tugged her trunk down the boardinghouse stairs and pushed it out onto the street. The beggar woman from the day before was now a block away, but easily visible from where I stood. Today, a raggedy little child was with her. I waited perhaps five minutes to hail a passing hansom. With the driver’s help we loaded the trunk into his vehicle.

  “I want you to take the trunk to that lady over there,” I said to him, pointing toward the woman.

  “What lady?”

  “That one.” And again I pointed to the woman who stood next to a light pole, her arm stretched out and a tin cup for coins in her hand. The child held on to her skirt.

  The driver shrugged but said nothing.

  A minute later we were at the curb. We pulled the trunk out and I set it down in front of the woman. I opened the trunk, lifted out the jewelry box, and handed it to her. The little girl at her skirt backed away from me, smiling but clearly shy.

  “Can you take the trunk, too? There are some clothes that might fit you. Do you have anyone to help you get it home?”

  Her smile, slow in coming, was wide and missing several teeth. “Yes, miss. I can take this trunk! I can take it.”

  I smiled back at her. I pulled Lily’s scarf out of the trunk and was about to drape it across the little girl’s shoulders, but it seemed too heavy to lay across such an innocent child. And I was still drawn to it, as much as I had been the first day I saw it around Andrew’s neck. I wasn’t ready to part with it. I coiled it about my own neck.

  “Thank you, miss! Thank you, miss!” the woman said, her eyes now shimmering with gratitude.

  I got back in the cab and shut the door.

  I had taken the ferry to Ellis only four times. The first time, when the fire sent me there broken and battered. The second, after having just learned Edward had been engaged. The third, when I went home to say good-bye to my family and bury forever what had happened to me. And now this time, when what I thought I’d needed to bury was instead returned to me.

  As the ferry neared the island, I felt I’d been gone for far longer than a day. I was aware of a weightlessness, as if Lily’s letter and certificate had been made of iron, and now that they were gone, I was returning to the island lighter. My eyes misted at the indescribable relief that was swelling inside me the closer we got to shore. It had been a long time since happy tears had slid down my cheeks.

  Minutes later, as the ferry docked and the gangplank was lowered, I hurried to queue up with the other passengers waiting to disembark. I wanted to tell the island all that had happened, to tell Dolly. To tell Ethan.

  It was late in the afternoon and the ferry house was crowded with immigrants waiting to get onto the ferry that I had just gotten off of. A flurry of languages floated on the air above me as I eased my way past the entry gates and beyond the throngs of people waiting to board.

  “Clara!”

  I heard my name above the din. I turned my head this way and that, searching for the source.

  “Clara! Here!”

  And then I saw Ethan, moving toward me.

  I rushed to him, surprising myself with the urgency I felt. I had so much to tell him.

  When he reached me, he pulled me to his chest as though I had been lost for weeks. “Are you all right? What happened?”

  “I’m fine! I’m all right.”

  He pulled back from me to study my face. “Why did you stay? Did you find him?”

  “Yes! I found him.”

  People were brushing past us as we stared at each other. Me with a hundred things to tell him, and him surely with a hundred questions. Then a look of profound loss swept across his face and all the questions in his eyes seemed to disappear. I realized why.

  Ethan thought I had not only found Andrew Gwynn, but that I had stayed with him. Spent the night with him.

  The anguish I now read in Ethan’s eyes I knew intimately. I had felt the same grief when I thought Edward was in love with another woman. It was the same anguish I had fought to spare Andrew from. Ethan wore the look of a lover terribly wronged, suffering a trespass of the ugliest kind against the most beautiful of virtues.

  He could feel this way only if one thing were true. And I was sure now that it was.

  Ethan was in love with me.

  As I had been in love with Edward.

  As Andrew had been in love with Lily.

  And that love had blossomed in the span of three weeks.

  In my heart I knew I did not yet love Ethan the way he loved me. But I felt the sure stirring of possibility and desirability. If I stayed, I would surely fall for him. The mere thought of that surrender made me shiver. I needed time to regain the strength I would need to withstand the cost of loving someone. I felt fragile inside, as if the pieces of my shattered life had been put back together but the glue had not dried.

  I remembered what Andrew had said when he explained what the Keats poem meant, that what you can still dream about is often sweeter than the reality.

  I wanted to dream about loving again before I embraced the reality of it, in all its wonder and risk.

  I raised my hand to his face and rested it on his cheek, the most comforting gesture I could think of.

  He leaned into it, hurt still shining in his eyes.

  “I am not in love with Andrew Gwynn,” I said. “I didn’t stay with him last night. I didn’t even talk to him.”

  His eyes widened in surprise, mixed with equal parts hope and hesitation.

  “And I was in love with Edward. But I know he’s gone.”

  Ethan covered my hand on his face with his. “What does this mean, Clara? For me? For us?”

  “It means I do want to love again, Ethan. Someday.”

  For a moment neither one of us said anything.

  “Don’t go to Scotland,” he finally said. A glassy tear shone at the corner of his eye.

  “It’s the one choice I can trust right now, Ethan.”

  He gently pulled my hand to his lips and kissed it. “You can trust me.”

  He bent his head toward mine and he kissed me, soft and long, right there in the ferry house with a hundred languages falling around us like rain.

  Like stars.

  The world seemed to tilt and I broke away before I plummeted into that kiss. I could not go to that uncertain place where Ethan had already gone. After what I had been through, I needed something far steadier than love. Our eyes met.

  “Right now I need you to trust me,” I whispered. “Please, Ethan. I need time for my heart to be still. It just needs to be still right now.” If he truly loved me, surely he would grant me that.

  He studied my face. “All right,” he finally said. “You will write?”

  “I promise.” I slipped my other arm through his. “Now walk with me? I want to tell you what happened with the letter and the necklace and Mr. Hartwell. It’s an amazing story.”

  We made our way out of the ferry house. A teasing autumn breeze followed us, lifting the marigolds from around my neck as if it might scatter them heavenward. I reached up with my free hand to press them gently back down over my heart.

  Thirty-Eight

  TARYN

  Manhattan

  September 2011

  HAD I not received the text from Kendal asking me whether she could sleep over at a friend’s house, I might have declined Mick’s invitation to dinner, but with Kendal taken care of, I had no reason not to go. I was surprised by how glad I was to say yes.

  I felt an unexpected kinship with Mick, a bond I had not sensed with anyone since Kent was alive. The trauma of what Mick and I had survived together exp
lained the connection in part, but there was more to it than the hour we’d shared on the worst day of my life. For the last ten years Mick and I had both been on a search. When our two quests collided, we were there to share the moment with each other.

  We walked to a Latin fusion bistro near his store and sat at a sidewalk table while we ate and talked. I was right about the aftermath of the disaster undermining Mick’s already fragile marriage. His ex-wife, Denise, hadn’t had the motivation to understand why Mick was obsessed with finding me. She didn’t want to understand that his spirit had been crushed, just like mine had been, even if what crushed him had been different from what flattened me. Denise ended up looking for intimacy in the arms of another man and, two years later, she divorced Mick.

  He stayed with the family floral business, taking over its management several years ago, after his father had a debilitating stroke. All that time he continued to look for me, even when it seemed I had never existed.

  I showed him pictures of Kendal and the Heirloom Yard that I had on my phone. I told him how wonderful it was to be her mother, and how much I enjoyed my job, and my little niche on the Upper West Side. I told him how surprised and shocked I was when the photo of us had appeared. I also told him what I had finally discovered the day before while helping a customer choose between green and blue fabric—that I had been living an in-between existence that had kept me cushioned from the hard and beautiful aspects of a full life. I hadn’t realized it until the photo had shown up. And then the scarf.

  “What will you do now?” Mick asked, as we lingered over coffee and flan.

  “Do you mean with the scarf?”

  “I mean with everything.”

  In his eyes I could see what he was asking. Now that he and I had reconnected, was there room in my newly begun life for his friendship?

  “Well, I’m going to try my best to find Rosalynn Stauer. It is her scarf, after all. And then I need to tell Kendal why I was on the street that day. I don’t know if she’ll ask me what would have happened to Kent if I hadn’t left the message. But I think she might. That’s why I’ve never told her.”

  Mick reached for his coffee cup. “But you know what the answer is, right?” He took a sip.

  I half smiled. “I know what my heart says would have happened if I hadn’t left that message.”

  Mick set his coffee cup down and reached across the table for my hand. “The heart always wants to believe the best. About everything. I wouldn’t change that for the world. But the heart doesn’t run the show.”

  I blinked back ready tears. “I know it doesn’t.”

  He squeezed my hand. “Only God knows what would have happened if you hadn’t left that message, Taryn. That’s the answer you give your daughter. Because it’s the truth.”

  I smiled at him, afraid to trust my voice. I knew he was right.

  “I am so glad I can tell her Kent knew about her before he died,” I finally said. “It will make the hard part easier for her to hear, I think. I can’t even tell you how glad I am that you found me.”

  “That makes two of us,” Mick said. We both laughed.

  “What would you have done if I hadn’t called you back? I mean, I know I told you not to call me again. But would you have let me believe, for the rest of my life, that Kent had died not knowing I was pregnant?”

  Smiling, Mick reached into his shirt pocket and drew out a letter-size envelope and placed it on the table between us. The envelope was addressed to me.

  “I was going to give you until the first of October and then I was going to send this to you, with the scarf.”

  I picked up the envelope. “Do you mind?”

  “Not at all.”

  I opened the flap and drew out a single sheet of cream-colored stationery stamped in green with the Athena logo.

  Dear Ms. Michaels:

  Please forgive me if I am making a mistake by writing to you and returning the scarf. For a decade I have looked for you to tell you that your husband replied to the text message I sent on your behalf. I didn’t receive it until many hours after I left you at the hospital, even though he sent it at 9:28 a.m.

  The message he wrote was, “Tell her, ‘Be happy.’”

  I hope you have been.

  Or I hope now you will be.

  Your friend,

  Mick Demetriou

  • • •

  WE ordered second cappuccinos, talked for another hour, and made plans to see each other in the coming week. Then Mick walked me to the subway, and kissed my cheek before I went down the stairs.

  I was glad to return to an empty apartment so that I could be alone with my thoughts, and the scarf.

  Celine called me a little after nine to ask me about my meeting with Mick and to tell me she had found Rosalynn Stauer, widowed now and living in New Jersey with her son and his wife.

  “You told her about the scarf?” I asked.

  “Was that okay? The son wasn’t going to tell me where she was until I told him why I was asking about her. Sorry if I spoiled a surprise you were planning.”

  “It’s okay,” I said. “Does she want me to mail it to her?” I was hoping Celine would say yes. If I waited until next week, Kendal and I could have a few days with it.

  “She didn’t say, Taryn. She just said she will be in touch. She still makes trips into Manhattan, apparently. Maybe she’s not in a rush.”

  Celine had sensed my reluctance to part with it so soon.

  “All right,” I said.

  “So, you had a good visit with Mick Demetriou?”

  “Yeah, I did.”

  For the next twenty minutes I told Celine all the reasons I had had a good visit. After we hung up, I got ready for bed and my phone vibrated.

  The text message was from Mick.

  “I had a really good time tonight. Sleep well.”

  I draped the scarf across my bedside table so that the marigolds by night-light were the last thing I saw before closing my eyes.

  I woke late the next morning and hurried through breakfast to get downstairs before we opened. Autumn Saturdays were always busy, since the promise of winter motivated our clientele to shop for the frigid days to come. Our first hour of business flew by. I had only a moment to text Kendal and ask her when I needed to come get her. She texted back that they were going out for an early brunch and Melissa’s parents would bring her home before noon.

  A few minutes after eleven, while I was finishing up an order at the cutting table, a familiar voice at the front of the store made my heart sink.

  Rosalynn Stauer had just walked into the Heirloom Yard and was now happily greeting Celine.

  The timing couldn’t have been worse. Kendal wasn’t even home yet. I had so very much wanted her to see the scarf before Mrs. Stauer reclaimed it. I doubted she would let me keep it another few days, since she’d already gone to the trouble of coming to Manhattan, though of course I would ask her.

  As she made her way to me, I heard Mrs. Stauer tell Celine that she missed seeing us, but she couldn’t sew anymore because her arthritis was so bad. If not for her recognizable voice, I wouldn’t have known her. Mrs. Stauer had aged considerably. Her hair was now left to its natural silver, and a jewel-topped cane suggested she was perhaps a bit unsteady on her feet.

  And she was widowed. I knew firsthand how the death of your husband could steal years from you.

  When she arrived at my table, Mrs. Stauer leaned forward to wrap me in a one-armed hug. The cane clattered against my knee. Celine flashed a sympathetic grin and left us to wait on other customers.

  “Dear Taryn! So the scarf is found at last!”

  “Yes,” I said. “Finally.”

  She broke away. “I never expected to see it again.”

  “I’m sorry it took so long.”

  “Not to worry. It wasn’t your fault.”<
br />
  “Would you like to come to the back room?” I asked. “Your scarf is there, quite safe this time.”

  Mrs. Stauer’s smile widened. “I would like that very much.”

  I ushered her into the back and asked whether she wanted to sit down for a moment, hoping she would say yes. I would need to explain why I wanted to keep the scarf for a little while, and she would probably need to be seated.

  “Oh, thank you so much, dear.” She eased herself down on one of the chairs and leaned her cane against the wall behind her. “I can still get around pretty good. Not so great going up and down these days. Makes traveling by train harder because of all those stairs, you know. But I still like to come to Macy’s. I can take a cab from Penn Station to just about anywhere. My daughter-in-law or son comes with me sometimes, because they worry about me. But I didn’t want them coming today.”

  I listened with half interest as I retrieved the scarf from my desk. I caught the faintest fragrance of floral notes as I brought it to her.

  “Oh, my goodness. Would you look at that!” She beamed and held out her hands.

  I gave her the scarf and sat down in the chair on the other side of the little table.

  “It looks the same as the day I last saw it. How remarkable!” she exclaimed.

  “The person who found it worked hard to get all the dust and ash out of it. He took good care of it.”

  Mrs. Stauer unfolded the entire length and then ran her fingers over the embroidered letters that spelled the name Lily.

  “Oh, Lily,” Mrs. Stauer murmured. She brought the scarf to her nose and inhaled. “Smells like roses. Isn’t that funny! The marigolds smell like roses!”

  “Yes. Um, Mrs. Stauer, I wonder if you could possibly consider allowing me to hold on to the scarf for just a little while longer,” I said, my heart pounding in my chest. “I really wanted to show it to my daughter before I gave it back to you. I know this is going to sound crazy, but that scarf saved her life. Only . . . she doesn’t know the story and I . . . I wanted her to see it when I tell her.”

  Mrs. Stauer looked at me, wordless, her smiling eyes visible just above the scarf that she still held to the bottom half of her face.