Cousin Kay
Kay read the notice announcing the wake in the morning paper, while drinking a very bitter coffee. The deceased was known to her by name only, but it was an old and familiar name, attached to an aristocratic line that Kay respected. A fever hospital in her small hometown, in fact, shared the name. She had been treated there several times as a child, and her sister had died there, not a year old, from a rheumatic disorder.
Having never before attended a royal wake, Kay was surprised to find on this particular occasion a sense of feudal obligation welling up inside of her. She had recently moved to the city, and knew no one...