The emptiness of the apartment taunted Patricia. Why it bothered her today when she usually treated it only as a place to sleep and eat she couldn't have said. There was nothing physically wrong with the space. It was just a generic apartment, rented because of its proximity to the prison, so similar to the one she lived in just outside of Ottawa.
Beige walls, beige carpeting, the furniture that came with the place-black pleather sofa and chair, two-person pine dinette set, a simple double mattress on a metal frame. The only thing different from this apartment versus her own was hers at least had her favorite shows on PVR.
Unsettled but unable to pinpoint why, Patricia skipped dinner-not a hard task given the frozen variety meals she kept stocked in the freezer, blech-and stripped in favor of a shower. She draped her uniform on a chair in the bedroom before heading into the bathroom, where the mirror over the sink cast her reflection. She paused to take a look.