“Why is that on the screen?” Nora asked.

Simon closed the door. “Internal quality review.”

“You told me the homeowner was informed.”

“Our participant experience depends on maintaining realistic conditions.”

“That’s not an answer.”

Simon folded his hands. “Mrs. Fenwick, you’ve benefited from our instruction. Your difficulty now is that you’re interpreting complex methodology without context.”

Imani spoke quietly. “She asked for her records.”

“We’ll process that through the appropriate channel.”

“When?”

“As soon as possible.”

Nora had rehearsed several angry speeches on the bus. All vanished when Simon leaned forward and said, “You should also understand that withdrawing at this stage may trigger reimbursement obligations.”

“Show me where I agreed to that.”

He opened a drawer, took out a thick packet, and set it on the table. There was Nora’s signature on the first page. She recognized it. The document beneath, however, included revised program headings she had never seen. She did not accuse him of forging anything. She simply took photographs of the pages he allowed her to inspect and asked for an independent copy.

Simon seemed more irritated by her measured questions than he had been by her tears the previous day.

“If you insist on treating a growth opportunity as a dispute,” he said, “we can’t guarantee future invitations.”

“I’m not interested in invitations,” Nora replied. “I want you to stop using my face.”

He said they would review her request. She asked him to write that down. He refused. Imani stood, and Nora followed.

In the hallway, a woman carrying a stack of promotional posters nearly collided with them. One poster slipped free. It showed a smiling older couple beneath the words HEALTHY COMMUNITIES REQUIRE MEASURABLE BOUNDARIES. Below them was a photograph of a young woman leaning angrily toward an elderly man across a garden fence.

Nora recognized the young woman from Paul’s neighborhood video. She recognized the man, too: Anthony.

“That’s not what happened,” she said aloud.

The poster carrier looked puzzled. “Sorry?”

“He was asking her where the recycling bins were. He wasn’t threatening her.”

Simon emerged behind them. “We’ve discussed the limits of informal interpretation.”

“Then why does your poster have the wrong story?” Imani asked.

No one answered.

Outside, Nora descended the stairs shaking, but she had done what she came to do. She had withdrawn in person, brought a witness, and obtained enough identifying information to request professional help. Her triumph was modest and therefore solid.

Elena met her beside the print shop window. “How did it go?”

“He thinks I’m too stupid to understand what I saw.”

“What did you see?”

Nora described the cropped footage and the poster. Elena felt a hard knot form in her stomach. It wasn’t simply that their anger was being measured. The company’s business depended on making ordinary people appear incapable of living beside one another.