“Understood,” she said.
Thatcher blinked, perhaps waiting for tears, for pleading, for the small performance of defeat that made men like him feel merciful when they did not have to be. When Marta didn’t give it to him, he shoved the notice into her hand.
“Best be gone by Sunday,” he said, and turned his back as if that was all the conversation required.
The door behind them shut with a final, wooden sound.
It wasn’t loud. It wasn’t dramatic. But Marta felt something inside her click into place as surely as a lock. For three years the company house had been theirs in the way a borrowed coat is yours until the owner wants it back. Now even that pretense was gone.
She looked down at Britta.
“We’re leaving,” she said.
Britta didn’t cry. She only asked, very softly, “Are we still in trouble if we don’t whisper?”
