Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory
The Sykes family's house is obsessively clean, thanks to their housekeeper, Gwen. As Cara says, "Give my room a cursory/inspection, you'd think I have OCD" (1.7). They keep up appearances inside their home, just as they do on the outside. After all, if you can afford a professional housekeeper, you can keep everything looking perfect.
How perfect? They have white carpet, people. White. Do you know how hard it is to keep white carpet looking good? You can't walk across it wearing shoes. You can't have pets. You can't eat in the same room, lest you spill something. White carpet basically screams, "Look at us! We're perfectly clean all the time! We barely even have feet!"
However, when the book opens, workers have come to the Sykes house to lay new mint-green carpet, because the white stuff was ruined with the worst kind of stain: Conner's blood. Cara tells us, "Some consider suicide/an act of honor. I seriously don't agree./But even if it were, you'd have to/actually die. All Conner did was stain Mom's new white Berber/carpet. They're replacing it now" (1.16). Way to ruin the perfect façade, Conner.
Instead of sitting beside her suicidal son in the psychiatric hospital, holding his hand, and asking him how she could be a better parent, Cara's mom is yelling at the carpet guys for not doing things perfectly enough. Cara feels sorry for them, but she enjoys the reprieve:
I sit on the top stair, unseen.
Invisible. Silent. I might as well
not even be here at all. And
that's all right. At least I don't
have to worry that she will focus
her anger on me. (4.17-19)
Our first glimpse of Cara's mom shows us an uptight woman for whom nothing can ever be good enough, including her children. And the thing about carpets, is that even if you have to take your shoes off to keep them clean, you still walk all over them. Which is pretty much what the Sykes parents do to their kids, refusing to acknowledge their quirks and imperfections and insisting they follow the path set out for them. Just like keeping the carpet clean, though, this perfection is impossible, which Cara and Conner both make quite clear in their own time.