“I’m Marianne,” she said. “I’m one of the founders of the school. I didn’t know anything about GWGW’s support of the personhood amendment until yesterday.”

“It isn’t hard to dig up other dirt on GWGW,” said Lena, pointing across the street at the Ranch. “We found dozens of Better Business Bureau complaints in three states, and one of their schools”—here she consulted a folder of photocopied materials, paging through until she found a grainy photocopied picture of what appeared to be a strip mall—“yes, the GWGW Medical Technologies Institute in Alpharetta, Georgia, it is currently under investigation.”

“Why?” Marianne reached for the folder, but Lena held it back.

“It’s a sonography school, meant to teach people to do sonograms at these medical imaging centers, and all of the classes are online. All of them!” the woman said. She opened the pages to screenshots of the registration forms, which looked like ads for a used car lot: Apply Now! 100% Financing! VISUALIZE a New Future for Yourself! “So when their students actually graduate, with their certificates, they have no hands-on training, no idea what they’re doing. They go in to those clinics and do sonograms of people’s large intestines. Seems sort of odd, in a so-called pro-life organization, don’t you think? They don’t even know anything about the life they’re looking at?”

“Seems pretty common with that crowd, if you ask me,” called a woman standing near the drink cooler.

“They told some people they weren’t pregnant at all,” another woman said. “But they were.”

Marianne considered how to proceed. “Obviously, an online sonogram school is a bad idea,” she began. “I am definitely with you there. But it’s not like an online poetry school is going to kill someone, or give them harmful information! Besides, our classes aren’t all online anyway. They’re just low-residency. In fact, we’re expecting our students back very soon, and it will be bad for their concentration, very bad for their short residency experience, if they know you’re out here protesting. And you’re also giving incorrect information, because we do not support the personhood amendment, or Tad Tucker, or anything political.”

“Well, when they arrive they can speak to us and decide whom they believe,” the woman said.

Marianne went back to the Ranch, got a bottle of white wine from the minifridge in her office, and opened it with a flimsy corkscrew. She took her glass, full to the top and speckled with small bits of cork, and sat down beside the freshly chlorinated pool. She could still hear the maddeningly repetitive chants, but the wine, which she drank in long gulps, helped a little. She pulled out the smartphone she hadn’t asked enough questions about. Nothing is free, her dad always said, but she always thought that was pessimistic. She faced away from the street, toward the pool.