The question followed Ronda all weekend.
Not like noise.
Noise could be escaped.
This was quieter than noise.
Worse than noise.
It sat beneath everything.
While she washed clothes in the small bathroom with one weak tap and a bucket that always seemed too small for the amount of life she had to rinse out of her things.
While she reheated rice that had gone dry at the edges.
While she stood at her window on Sunday evening watching the neighborhood carry on in its ordinary, unromantic way.
Children ran barefoot.
Someone laughed too loudly in the next compound.
A woman called a name three times before a stubborn answer came back.
Life continued with its usual lack of ceremony.
And under all of it, one truth kept pressing:
If the firm could make six weeks feel permanent, what exa
