I let it pass because I was too tired to care.

Later, I called my former supervisor, a woman named Ruth Calder who had watched me keep the dyeing line operational during the supply crisis.

Ruth told me Marlene had instructed everyone to say I had resigned voluntarily.

A severance form waited in the personnel office with my name typed beneath an empty signature line.

“Don’t sign it,” Ruth whispered.

“And save every email you sent to yourself with those revised forecasts.

The factory’s numbers are worse than they told your father.”