Marianne had brought something for Ruth too—she had enlarged some of the sketches she’d saved from their mother, and bought simple pine frames for them, for the church nursery. Roadside daisies, a lady’s slipper in the woods, a frog on a lily pad. She came back with an armload and held them up, one by one. She told Ruth about the lady’s slippers, how an editor had confused them with irises. She left out the part about their mother’s willingness to play along.

“The children will love these,” Ruth said, standing and rubbing her back.

“Mom would be happy for you,” Marianne said. “She’d be really proud.” Marianne held the lady’s slipper against the wall, at eye level.

“Lower,” Ruth said. “We want the kids to see them.”

Marianne told her, again, how their mother in her last months had lunch with Ruth every day, how they both picked her up after school and sometimes early, walking to the playground so Ruth could swing—she was obsessed with swinging, as high as she could. That was the time of these drawings.

“Tell me another,” Ruth said, one hand on her stomach, after Marianne finished each story. And just when she thought she’d exhausted her store of memories—it was a long time ago—her mind, miraculously, presented another.

“Maybe I’ll stay,” she told her father at dinner. “I could get a job at the community college. We could be coworkers.”

“They’re not hiring. Only firing, unfortunately.”

“Somewhere else then—in Williamsburg or Richmond. I could get a car.”

“You can’t stay here,” Howard said. He softened when he saw her stricken face. “I mean you can stay with me as long as you like, but it wouldn’t be good for you to live here.”

“I don’t have anywhere to go,” she told him. “I lost my job.”

“I remember you had a job before you went down to Florida,” he said. “I remember they wanted to hire you—that elementary school? You’ll get bored here, Marianne. You’ll never meet anyone. Trust me.”

“But what about the baby?”

“I’ll buy your tickets. Before the baby’s born and after.”

“You’re that eager to get rid of me? After I almost drowned?”

“You need to go back to your life,” he told her.

He was right—it was as if she’d lost her path. She needed to go back to the place she’d been before she got lost.

So she called around, made some appointments in New York, bought a train ticket and packed a suitcase. She called Mark, guilt and fear churning in her stomach, and asked him for a reference. He didn’t sound angry or even surprised to hear from her. He caught her up on the latest news.