Marianne pushed the table at him, hard, and walked out.

In her office, she opened a bottle of wine, then sat down at her desk. She had not returned an email in days. She’d left everything to Eric, and he hadn’t delivered on a single promise.

You’re in charge, aren’t you? Tom had asked.

None of us would be here if it weren’t for you, Janine had said.

Marianne opened her email, poured a glass of wine, and waited. Today alone, she’d received a hundred new messages—from students, from applicants, from curious parties. She scanned her unread mail and found one from Martin Rice, of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. The subject line read “Interview for Tomorrow’s Paper?”

Marianne opened it, found his number, and dialed. “Martin Rice? Yes, this is Marianne Stuart, from Genesis Ranch. I got your message. I’m free to talk.”

18

Later Marianne would realize that she’d done things out of order, that she should have gone first to see Frances, or talked to Mark, or even Eric. Maybe one of these people could have talked her down, warned her against going to the press. Or maybe she should have called Sophie—who hadn’t waited to speak to her after the reading, and who Marianne suspected of calling the reporter in the first place. Instead she’d dialed Ruth’s number, but couldn’t decide if she would yell or apologize, so she hung up before her sister answered. Like she’d answer anyway, Marianne thought while finishing most of a bottle of wine and shakily driving Eric’s car to the coffee shop suggested by the reporter, Martin Rice, who looked much younger than she pictured. Perhaps it was his youth and eagerness—he seemed so interested in everything she had to say, so rigorously observant—that made her talk.

It had been easy to get away. Everyone at the Ranch was at dinner, gossiping or fretting about the Day of Inspiration. Day of Desperation, she told Martin Rice. He just nodded and wrote in his notebook, his recording device a fulcrum between them. The coffee he offered churned in Marianne’s stomach, but she drank it anyway, like medicine.

“Let’s go back a little,” Martin suggested. “To the beginning of the school.”

“It all went wrong when GWGW got involved,” Marianne said. “God’s World God’s Word—you know them?”

He nodded.

“They offered us all of this funding, and all of these services, and it sounded okay for a while—well, maybe not okay, but necessary, just to keep the school running, to pay our teachers. I didn’t know the whole story—I didn’t know they were connected to this crazy personhood bill, or the way their support of Tad Tucker and personhood was just a way to get something else they wanted.”

“Which was?”