I grabbed my coat from the hook by the door. Dark wool, warm enough for a January morning in Toronto. I slid my feet into my boots, zipped up, wrapped a scarf around my neck, and picked up my purse.
My fingers brushed the small zippered pocket inside. The habit was automatic. In it, I kept a little collection of tools I’d never quite retired: a steel measuring tape, a pocket magnifier, and, most importantly, a few small sterile sample vials in a padded sleeve.
Old habits from old sites. Concrete dust, soil, corrosion flakes—I’d collected them all.
“Let’s see what’s rotting in your story, Glenda,” I muttered as I stepped out into the gray morning.
The cold hit my cheeks, sharp and clean. My breath puffed out in small clouds as I walked down the driveway. The snow on the lawn had hardened into a patchwork of crust and ice, the kind you could walk on if you stepped just right, the surface holding you until it didn’t.
It was a thirty-minute drive to The Willows. I didn’t remember much of it, to be honest—the way you don’t remember the highway you’ve taken a thousand times when you’re lost in thought. The wipers beat a steady rhythm against the windshield, smearing road salt and slush, and my brain began assembling a mental blueprint.
Timeline: Two months ago, Mom moved from the Richmond Hill house to The Willows.
Primary decision-maker: Glenda, armed with a POA signed under murky circumstances.
Recent events: New will last month, giving Glenda the Richmond Hill property and investment portfolio. Me, a “blue envelope.”
Cause of death: “Heart failure” at 4 a.m., reported via phone by Glenda, not by the facility. No prior contact from any medical staff. No opportunity for me to see Mom, to talk to her, to verify her condition.
And then there were the words Glenda had used. Not “I’m so sorry.” Not even “Mom died.”
“She’s gone.”
Like she was talking about a stock position she’d just liquidated.
The Willows sat on the edge of the city, where old farmland met newer developments. When I pulled into the parking lot, my tires crunched over salted ice. The building itself was modern faux comfort: warm-toned bricks, lots of glass, and a pitched roof that tried to look like a home instead of a complex.
As an architect, I always looked past the façade.
The front entrance had double glass doors and a receptionist desk visible through them, along with two uniformed security guards flanking the lobby like decorative columns. Visitors went through there, smiling, signing in, being politely observed.
I didn’t go through the front.
Older buildings, even fancy ones, have certain consistencies. They all need to receive food, laundry, and waste. They all have delivery bays and service corridors, the veins and arteries behind the pretty skin.
I drove around the side, past a row of bare-limbed maples, until I saw the delivery area: a wide roll-up door, half open, the air around it smelling faintly of detergent and damp cardboard.
A white laundry van was parked nearby, the rear doors open. A young guy in a gray uniform shirt with “BrightWash” printed on the back was pushing a wheeled cart piled with bagged linens toward a smaller side door.
I timed my steps to his.
“Cold one today,” I said, falling in behind him as if I belonged there.
“Always is,” he grunted, using his hip to push the door open. It led into a narrow corridor lined with industrial lights and exposed pipes running along the ceiling. Warm, humid air hit my face, carrying the smells of bleach and overcooked vegetables.
He didn’t look back. People rarely do when you move like you know where you’re going.
I followed him through a set of swinging doors into a service area: plastic bins, a loading dock, a staff noticeboard, a battered soda machine. A sign painted on the wall pointed to “Service Elevator.”
