Rebecca and George both stared at her coldly. She continued blithely, now attempting to make nervous eye contact with each of them. “Shall we proceed from this point forward in good faith that we both—that all three of us, I mean—have the same agenda, which is to say that we want to dialogue so as to discover the truth as best we can about the events that surround the Triangle fire?”

“Let’s try for that,” Rebecca said, “though you will just have to stop saying ‘dialogue’ when you mean ‘talk.’”

“Fine. My next question, then, concerns the possibility of sexual harassment and abuse in the workplace. Do you know, was your grandmother sexually abused at the Triangle Waist Company, or did she ever say anything to you about her sister, most specifically, or about any other women, other workers who may have suffered from sexual harassment or sexual abuse?”

“Why are you asking this?” Rebecca asked. “Where is this coming from?”

“It has come up in several intriguing places in my research.”

“But what could that have to do with the fire?” George asked. He continued to turn the eyeglasses in his hands.

“Well, obviously, as incendiary as the subject is—” Here Ruth broke off and looked at both of them expectantly, hoping that they were as pleased by her wit as she was herself, as it was a remark she was planning to deploy during her PowerPoint presentation. “Of course it would have had nothing to do with the actual ignition of the fire. I do wonder, however, if the socioeconomic hierarchies in place at the Triangle Waist Company did in fact have any actuarial significance in the morbidity outcomes, vis-à-vis access to egress and safety from the fire.”

“Access to egress,” George murmured softly, picking up one of the coffee spoons to tap it rhythmically to the five syllables, which he continued to do until Rebecca leaned over and took it out of his fingers.

“I was just measuring out their lives in coffee spoons,” he said.

“Stop that,” Rebecca said.

“Personally, I admire such creativity,” Ruth said. “I understand you are very musical, very talented. I do applaud that.”

“I used to clap on one and three, now I snap on two and four,” George said.

“Quit it!” Rebecca hissed at him. “I mean it. Or leave us alone.”

“I’ll be good,” he vowed, picking up the eyeglasses once again and absentmindedly polishing them with a napkin.

“I’m sorry, Ruth, can you say that in English?” Rebecca asked impatiently. “Do you mean if the women were victims of sexual abuse, they were more likely to die?” Joe Green jumped off her lap and walked over to Ruth’s briefcase, which he sniffed cautiously.

“We understand each other perfectly,” Ruth said. She took a sip of her now-tepid coffee.

“How would that work?”

“Women who are victims of sexual abuse have lowered self-esteem,” Ruth began. “This can lead to—”

“Oh, please! Do you mean to say they were more likely to die because they wouldn’t have enough self-esteem to save themselves? That’s just insane!” Rebecca burst out.