A Fall of Marigolds

him care for his patients. Her father says she was good at nursing because “[she] didn’t panic” (35). However, Clara really wanted to get out of Pennsylvania. She “wanted to be in the city,” and “[m]arriage to a Pennsylvania farmer wouldn’t take [her] there” (35). However, Edward’s death not only dashed her romantic hopes but also “stole” her “affinity for the wild and wonderful. The hospital was busy, but it was not wild, or wonderful” (36).

Clara manages to retrieve the pattern book for Andrew but mistakenly opens his wife’s trunk first, where she sees a book of poems by the 19th-century English romantic poet John Keats. Clara decides to take the book to Andrew as well as the pattern book she retrieves from his trunk. As she is hiding the books under her bed until she has time to take them to Andrew, papers fall out of the book of poetry: a certificate of annulment for the marriage between Lily and Andrew, with only Lily’s signature, and a letter from Lily, with a first line that reads “Dear Andrew, I hope in time you can find it possible to forgive me…” (41).