Choralmere
This house is white, like the inside of a seashell. The rooms are white. The walls are white. The floors are white tile, or bamboo. The counters in the kitchen are white. This house is white. Dirt is not allowed. Mess is not allowed. Shadow is practically forced away. There is too much light in this house. It is not comforting. Every inch of it is visible. Every inch of it is seen. There is no escaping the white, bright light of the house. Choralmere has big windows, that let all manner of light in, and cool lights that blaze even at midnight. Everything is bright. Everything is seen. And even in that, there is a still coldness. The chairs are all hard. There are no pillows. Each room is impersonal. Each place is distant. The bedrooms have no books in them. There are no dirty dishes in the kitchen sink. There are no crumbs on the counter. There are no paintings on the walls. There is no art in any room except Mai's Studio. The living room has no blankets, and the couch is not soft, nor worn. It is cold leather, and it feels strange when you sit on it, almost like it's not leather at all, but paper. There is one painting above the mantle in the living room, above a fire place that has never been used, has nota scrap of ash in it. It is framed in pure gold. The image is too perfect to be real. Tam's mouth is painted into a smile. Linh looks younger than him. Their parents are smiling. Linh cannot bear to look at it.
