My father closed his eyes, and for a long moment he was silent, and I could see him going back, down through ten years of things he had trained himself not to look at, feeling his way toward something in the dark.

“I remember the supervisor,” he said at last.

“Martin Vale.

Everyone at the plant knew Vale.

A cold man.

Always polite, always correct, and never once kind, not to anyone.

There was something underneath the politeness that made people careful around him.” He rubbed his forehead slowly.

“I remember the inspections.