Terese's Mother
Terese’s one-bedroom apartment in the City - the only one she had lived in since arriving there fresh out of college 5 years earlier, the one she loved as home - always left her mother gasping for breath. It was not the modest living room, the tiny and windowless galley kitchen, or the bedroom with the one big, casement window that looked out onto a moderately busy, but homey, neighborhood street – and, thankfully, a mature London planetree below - that left her mother stricken during her twice-yearly visits. In fact, the air flowed miraculously freshly into and through the little apartment. Rather, her mother needed color. She breathed it in through her eyes like oxygen. And Terese had audaciously painted all of the walls of her apartment a uniform, crisp white. She had also chosen only modern, clean furniture in shades of grey and white. Even the throw pillows were grey. The art, to add insult to her mother’s injury, consisted entirely of framed black and white photographs.
