“Next Sunday, they’ll be gone.”

“Gone!” Sophie whistled appreciatively.

“Back home, to write. They’ll work from home with their teachers. Then come back in late August.”

“Now it’s your time to write,” Sophie said. “And they pay you, all this time.” She bent to pull a sapling from the mulch.

“My time,” Marianne said. “Yep.”

“All from tuition? The reno, the teachers, supplies, your salary?” she asked, straightening and pocketing the weed. “Must be expensive, running this place.”

“We’ve got a little help,” Marianne said. “Some investors.”

“If you ever want to share the info,” Sophie said, “I wouldn’t mind some reno help.”

“Trust me, you wouldn’t want these people,” Marianne said quickly. “I’m not sure we want them, to tell you the truth. But here we are.”

Sophie opened her mouth, as if she might ask another question, then closed it with an appraising frown. “That’s okay,” she said finally. “You don’t want to say anything, I understand. But it wouldn’t be hard to figure it out, you know—if I wanted to. Anyway, you had a nice service, your students seem happy. You should be proud.”

Marianne thought she detected a faint note of reproach, or maybe suspicion, in Sophie’s tone. She knew Sophie wouldn’t approve of GWGW or the compromises she’d made, but wasn’t it true that things were going well, that the students were leaving their first session glad they’d come, and maybe even eager to return? Of course she was proud! She was reminded of how she felt on the next-to-last day of the school year, when students in her Brooklyn classes had their dance festival on the blacktop playground. None of it was really her doing—she hadn’t done the choreography or the costuming—but she was a part of things, a member of the community, bobbing her head in the sunshine and clapping like everyone else.

She moved through the rest of the day in a detached but not unpleasant fog. Everywhere she looked—in the dining hall or the garden, around the pool or by the picnic tables—there were groups of students trying to figure out God’s will, endeavoring to make that will manifest. And they were happy! They said good morning and good afternoon, they told Marianne to have a blessed day.