My Grandmother Found Me And My Daughter In A Shelter—Then Asked Why We Weren’t Living In Our House On Hawthorne Street

Laya has her own room, painted a shade of lavender she picked herself after spending an afternoon at the hardware store studying paint chips like they were the most important documents in the world. Her drawings are taped to the walls—a gallery of crooked houses and smiling suns and pictures of her and me and Evelyn.

She walks to school now, just three continue reading …