Laya smiled, and just like that, for half a second, I forgot where we were. Then the shelter door opened behind us and the cold slapped me back into reality.
We were outside St. Bridg Family Shelter. 6:12 a.m. The sky was still a bruised gray, the sidewalk damp, the air carrying that winter smell—metallic and clean—like the world had been scrubbed too hard.
Laya adjusted her backpack, which was bigger than she was. I tugged the zipper up on her puffy coat and tried not to look at the sign above the entrance.
Family shelter.
It wasn’t even the word shelter that got me. It was the word family—like we were a category, like we were a label on a box.
“Okay,” I said, forcing brightness into my voice.
“School bus in five minutes.”
Laya nodded. She was brave in a quiet way that made me feel both proud and guilty at the same time.
Then she asked softly,
“Do I still have to say my address when Mrs. Cole asks?”
My stomach clenched.
“I don’t think she’ll ask today,” I said.
Laya didn’t push. She just looked down at her shoes and then back up at me like she was memorizing my face, like she was checking if I was still me.
“Mom,” she said.
“Are we going to move again?”
I opened my mouth, and nothing came out.
And that’s when a black sedan slid to the curb like
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