The five-gallon bucket of eggshell white comes with the house. There's linoleum but there's not wallpaper, so she's able to begin immediately covering the sponge-painted periwinkle walls of the entryway. It's hot and empty, the window boxes humming low and the fans making a gentle occasional whap when they get too far out of orbit and have to reset themselves.

In the Materials section on Craigslist there's a ship's chain for sale she happened across looking for cheap doors and extra tile. Should have bought it. It matches the house perfectly. Not the color but the concept.

She's painting her interiors white and she's painted her life white. Her sound is the sound of air conditioners in empty rooms. The past is trapped safely under two coats of primer, where kids and pets can't get at it. The screwholes and gashes in her walls are puttied over and smoothed out so you can't see the places where things were loved so hard the pipes exploded. It's a blank new beginning and you can't hear history screaming to be let out.

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