I held onto that.

Through all the paperwork and the legal structuring and the endless careful work of turning an impulse into an institution, I held onto the idea that in building this thing, I was not only helping strangers but continuing something my mother had started, expressing in the world the same protective fierceness she had turned on Chloe and me.

She had used her strength to shelter two daughters.

I would use what she left me to shelter as many strangers as I could reach.