GRAY
The gravel beneath our boots announces arrivals in a space that should stay quiet. Thirty-eight refugees pressed into a motel built for fishermen and hikers back when this stretch of mountain road still saw regular traffic. The Magnolia's been dying for decades—you can see it in the rust stains bleeding from the gutters, in the chain-link fence that's more gap than barrier, in the way the neon sign flickers M-A-G-O-I instead of spelling anything coherent.
Mother holds Samira like she's trying to absorb twenty years of absence through skin contact, and I catalog the changes in both. Mother's lost weight from places that already ran lean, fresh bruises painting her arms in shades of yellow-green where Remus's final cruelties left their mark. But her eyes carry something I haven't seen
