When would Ruth see her? she asked Howard one morning on their walk. She couldn’t shut her out forever—could she?

Marianne had to jog to keep up with her dad’s pace. “I almost died,” she said.

“Maybe you need to reach out again,” he said, slowing slightly, “in a different way. I’ve been doing some gardening at the church. Maybe there’s something you can do. Something to help.”

Finally Ruth agreed to a meeting brokered by Howard—Marianne could help put together the new nursery and playroom at her church. Marianne showed up early, but her sister was already there, struggling to open a box with dull scissors. “Here, let me,” Marianne said, slicing open the box with her house key. On the side of the box was a photo of the finished play set—Noah’s Ark, modern but unmistakable, made of smooth bentwood. “You don’t have to put that together,” Ruth said.

“Because of the flood?” Marianne said. “Or the Bible? Or maybe you think I’ll screw it up.” She reached inside to find the assembly instructions, opened a lengthy booklet written in German and pictographs. “Which I probably will.”

“Sorry,” Ruth said. “I’m sure you can handle it.”

“You can ask,” Marianne said. “About what happened. It’s okay.”

“Well,” said Ruth. “You can tell me.”

“I didn’t mean for things to go the way they did,” Marianne said.

“Which things? The part where you humiliated me in front of everyone at your school? The part where you went to the press and talked about how it was all a con? Or, let me see, the part where you recklessly endangered people’s lives?”

Marianne wanted to argue—it was her school, and Ruth and Tad humiliated her—but remembered what Howard told her, she was here to help, maybe to listen. “I didn’t want to hurt anyone,” she said quietly. “I didn’t mean to endanger anyone’s life.”

“Did you really just want to punish people, for believing? And take their money?”

“No,” Marianne said.

“But you did take their money.”

“I think I just wanted a change, I wanted to see if I could go back in time a little. Some of the experience was actually good. For me, and for the writers. I think.”

“I’m sorry that things didn’t work out with Eric. You loved him.”

Marianne sighed and turned the booklet in her hands upside down. Here was the thing about coming home to family: even after years spent mostly apart, Ruth and Howard knew her better than anybody, and it felt good to be understood by people who would still let her in. That was how she’d once felt about Eric.