It was a crisp, beige envelope with the City of Raleigh seal. Inside, a single sheet of paper that made her palms sweat. Notice of Unpermitted Structural Alteration. A routine audit of the property’s tax records versus a recent Google Street View update had flagged a discrepancy—a window where there shouldn’t be one. An inspector would arrive on Thursday.
A young woman named Priya with glasses and a tattoo of the Raleigh skyline on her forearm took one look at Marisol’s folder of photos, Hector’s rough sketches, and the half-eaten fig-rosemary roll she’d brought as a peace offering. city of raleigh building permits
“How long?” she whispered.
They would make her rebuild the wall. The beautiful, stupid, suffocating wall that had choked the room for ninety years. It was a crisp, beige envelope with the City of Raleigh seal