Honor Jones

Illustrations by Katherine Lam
The children don’t look real. It’s because of what they’re wearing—it’s the color of their clothes. None of the T-shirts has any language or images—no slogans or athletes’ names, no animals or action figures. Color conveying only the idea of color. Later, she can’t remember what she noticed except that the colors were very bright. That and the fact that she didn’t recognize any of the children’s faces, though this is the playground of her own child’s school.

I had wanted, I thought, soapstone counters and a farmhouse sink. I had wanted an island and a breakfast nook and two narrow, vertical cabinets on either side of the stove; one could be for cutting boards and one could be for baking sheets. I followed a cabinetry company called Plain English on Instagram and screenshotted its pantries, which came in paint colors like Kipper and Boiled Egg.