The Ranch was reopened on an existing GWGW campus, an Orlando-based school of mass communications and social media. Mark and his partners had, in his words, exited the investment opportunity. It was unclear how much his share of the take would be, but he said he’d set some aside for Eric and Marianne: a finder’s fee, he called it. Eric was rewarded with a full-time GWGW job, with a real salary and benefits and a 401(k). He and Regina had just left for a trip to the British Isles—no hurricanes there, after all. He was taking her to the James Joyce House of the Dead, to Frank O’Connor’s birthplace. Real romantic stuff, Mark told Marianne. She could tell he was trying to spare her feelings.

After reading Lorraine’s student evaluations, they kept her on as poetry faculty. Tom said he’d had enough—he picked up a visiting writer gig in California. Frances was happy, for her part, to collect the insurance money. “Nobody lost out,” Mark said. “Except, well, maybe you.”

“What about the students?”

“We’re overenrolled! They love the Ranch.”

“No—the individual students. Like, what about Patty? And Davonte? And Janine Gray?”

“Davonte’s doing great—didn’t you see him on Good Morning America? I don’t know about everybody else, but we were very generous with the people who went through the storm.”

“Mark, did we have to do it this way? Did you have to have GWGW’s help?”

He snorted. “Nobody gets anywhere on their own, Marianne. Not anywhere worthwhile.”

Marianne thought that this was most truthful thing she’d ever heard Mark say.

“Can I call them? Email them?”

“Who—GWGW? I don’t think—”

“No, Mark. The students.”

“Marianne, like I said, I’m glad to give you a glowing reference. I’m glad to send the money—it’s enough to get you into a new apartment, get you on your feet again. But don’t you think it would be better to make a clean break? Start over? That’s what I’m thinking would be best for everyone.”

She gave him her dad’s address and hung up. In her suitcase she’d packed the new clothes she’d bought, some notebooks, the snow globe from her mother. The water in the globe was now half-evaporated; it looked like there’d been a flood.

I love you, Janine had said, planting a kiss on her forehead. I forgive you.

23

Marianne’s favorite time of day: four o’clock in the afternoon, blue-gray light filtering through her classroom’s grimy windows, new tempera paintings hanging from the ceiling or drying on the racks near the radiator. Everything put back in order: the math manipulatives in their bins, books reshelved, brushes washed, paint jars lidded and rinsed. Desks wiped down, papers stickered with glitter stars. Halls quiet. Time to leave.