Sara stepped through the doors. Inside, the entrance hall had been turned into a reception area. The desk hosted stacks of brochures, a guestbook and a large bowl of fresh fruit with a sign inviting passers-by to help themselves. It reminded Sara of a hotel she had once stayed in, a place in the Scottish Highlands, where snow still dusted the ground in April and cold draughts haunted the corridors.

A woman got up from her seat behind the desk and leaned over, smiling. “Can I help you?” she chirped.

Sara approached the desk, feeling a pulse of uncertainty. What if they turned her away? Why would they let her in? What business did she have bothering one of their residents?

“I was hoping to see Mary Jackson?”

She hadn’t intended it to be a question, but it was birthed from her mouth as such nonetheless. The receptionist’s face switched from open to closed, her eyes studying harder. Sara searched her memory for the name of the woman she had spoken to the morning before when she had phoned this place.

“Are you a relative?” the receptionist asked.

Sara looked at the name tag on her breast. It said: margaret spence. She remembered.

“Margaret,” she said. “I spoke with you on the phone yesterday morning. My name’s Sara Keane. Mary came to my house and my husband brought her back here.”

Margaret’s face went slack, then brightened, then darkened, all within the space of a second. Finally, she gave a smile that ached with effort, her hands spreading on the desk as if thrown down in supplication.

“Oh, yes, of course. I must apologise again for the upset.”

“It’s fine, honestly,” Sara said. “But I’d like to see Mary, if that’s all right? I just want to see if she’s okay, see if she needs anything.”

Margaret stared for a moment before her smile brightened again, and she called to another staff member to take over the desk. She came around to Sara and signalled her to follow. They climbed the grand flight of stairs up to the first floor before taking a left along a series of corridors.

“The nurse dressed the cut on Mary’s foot, and the doctor came out to see her yesterday afternoon. He said she’s fine, just a bit worn out from the walking. She’s been resting since then. We brought her meals to her room, just so she could recover in peace.”

Most of the passing doors stood open, each room much the same as the next, plain functional furnishing, few personal touches. Odours laced together, triggering memories in Sara’s mind. Schoolrooms, dentists’ chairs, libraries, hospitals. She remembered her grandmother’s withering years, one stroke after another until there was nothing left of her.