Clara had built a company on that principle, alongside a man she had lost, and she was not going to let two men who despised the principle stand at its flagship desk and drive the tired and the grieving out into the night.

Karl had asked her to think of his family.

She had thought of every family his contempt would have turned away.

And I want to sit with that, because the firing is the part of this story that some people find harsh, and it deserves an honest reckoning.

It is true that Clara ended two men’s employment in the middle of the night, and that they had families, and that losing a job is a real and serious hardship, and Clara knew all of that, and did it anyway, and did not enjoy it.

So it is worth being clear about why it was justice and not cruelty, because the distinction matters.