“We don’t trust you,” said another woman with a deep suntan and an aggressive, nearsighted squint. “We don’t trust any of the GWGW schools, which is why we’re having protests at each of the five Florida campuses today. My daughter went to one of the GWGW schools, and now she’s twenty thousand dollars in debt, unemployed, and living above my garage.”

“What school?” Marianne asked. “Not ours?”

“No, not yours,” the woman allowed. “A prelaw school. But do your students have jobs and skills? Do they have debt?”

Marianne didn’t answer, and the woman continued, with more anger. “Maybe one day she’ll go to a real law school and sue all of you. Or maybe I will.”

“We do appreciate that you came and talked to us,” said the first woman, accepting the brochures, application, and business card Marianne offered in a conciliatory way. Then she picked up her sign and led her fellow protesters in a fresh, lusty round of chanting.

Marianne went back across the street and, while she considered what to do next, busied herself with watering the hanging ferns and geraniums she’d bought to conceal the main building’s cracked stucco walls. It was easy to hear the chanting from where she stood, and she felt conspicuous, so she went inside. She closed the door to her stuffy office, but could hear it still. She checked email on her phone and found a message from Patty Connor, who’d written in Tom’s class about her eight miscarriages. Did you know that the personhood amendment would limit the treatment of my infertility? Patty wrote. I’m a pastor’s wife and as pro-life as they come, but I oppose this amendment and hate the way it is being used to suggest that I am not a good person, not a good Christian. As an infertile woman, I already struggle with misinformation and societal preconceptions about my disease and its treatment. Tad Tucker’s bill just makes things worse for me.

As you know, it was very difficult for me to share my work and my life story at Genesis Ranch. It took me a while, in Tom’s class, to understand that there is a distance between the “I” of my narrator and myself, the writer, and to be able to accept critiques and suggestions. I still have a hard time with that, but I am working on it. How am I supposed to return to class knowing that my actions are being judged this way by my institution? Does this mean that my work will not be read the same way, that I won’t be taken seriously? Is this another distancing I will have to work on?