Powder and Silence

She keeps everything at the right distance. The line, the quota, the women, the grief she distributes so evenly across her days that she's stopped feeling its weight. Dot Marsden has run the factory floor for nine years the way water moves downhill - without apparent decision, without hurry, finding the path of least resistance and taking it. She does not talk about her brother. She does not open certain letters. She does not let anyone close enough to notice.

Then Sylvia Cross arrives on a ...