Julian's POV
July meant the shelter was halfway done.
Jo sent progress photos on a Wednesday. The children's floor was framed, the south-facing windows installed, and the sight lines exactly what the drawings had promised. Elena had been to the site twice, and both times she called me afterward with a quietness that meant she was feeling something she didn't yet have language for.
I went to the site on a Thursday morning.
Standing on the children's floor with the summer light coming through the south windows, the street visible from inside but the interior invisible from outside, I understood something I hadn't fully understood when I was drawing it.
Spaces change what's possible for the people inside them.
Not metaphorically. Literally. A child who can see the street from a safe int
