Rosemary Simpson

“and a doctor had been in attendance, so there didn’t seem to be anything amiss that I could discern.” Warneke was taking great care with how he phrased his answers. “But there’s a reason why you particularly remember the Judge?” “He was a very well-known man, Mr. Hunter, often in the newspapers. His wife had begun to make her mark in society.” “Do you always know this much about the people you bury?” “Part of what we do is advise families on the most suitable services for the departed, tailored to the appropriate station in life. We assisted with Judge MacKenzie’s first wife, so we naturally assumed we would be serving the family again. There’s a certain comfort and trust in familiarity.” “I don’t remember much about what happened in the hours and days immediately after my father’s death, Mr. Warneke. By the time I was able to ask, I was told it would be better to remember him as he had been in life. I accepted that idea. Then. Now I want answers.” “I don’t wish to cause you undue pain, Miss MacKenzie. Or to reawaken your grief.” “I want the truth, Mr. Warneke. You may be one of the very few people who”
― Rosemary Simpson, What the Dead Leave Behind

“She’d always fallen asleep in a nest of words, one hand resting on a beloved favorite, the other curled into the pages of one of her father’s legal treatises or the latest volume from Mr. Henry James or the exciting Mr. Stevenson. It struck her quite suddenly that her new husband might not want to have to reach his bride by crawling over her drawbridge of sharp-cornered tomes. She pushed away the thought on the same breath as it occurred to her”
― Rosemary Simpson, What the Dead Leave Behind