When she got out of the building, Clara was shocked at the chaos outside. She was in Lower Manhattan that day to meet a wealthy client who wanted a copy of a marigold scarf. She was going to tell him she was pregnant, a fact she had waited to tell him. She had been set to meet him that morning at the restaurant on the top floor of one of the buildings. Throughout Taryn's chapters she reminisces about the attacks and that morning and about the guilt she feels for her husband's death. Taryn lost her husband in the Septemterrorist attacks, a loss she has never processed but was reminded of when a photograph of her and a florist from that morning was published in a magazine to commemorate the ten year anniversary of the attacks. Taryn, a textile restorer, notes how she was bewitched and haunted by a scarf with a pattern of marigolds that she only saw for one day, September 11, 2001. The novel opens with Taryn Michaels in September 11, 2011. These passages are also written in the past tense.

The novel does include several sections in both Taryn and Clara's narrative where the characters remember past events. Both characters' stories are written in the first person in past tense.

The characters' storylines will be discussed separately in this plot summary to keep their stories linear, though they converge in the end, as will be discussed. A Fall of Marigolds focuses on two characters living in the New York City area separated by 100 years (1911-2011) but linked by traumatic events.

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