"What?"
"His face was burning. It was the malaria. Wasn't it? You've told me yourself, he brought that home from New Guinea, latent but never cured."
"Oh, he had that, yes. A mild form."
"Mother, malaria is not mild if it gives you recurrent fevers and collapse. I've read up on it. I had to, trying to understand."
"You're very full of book knowledge, certainly."
"I've found more truth in books than in people. A mild form—why, two years later he died of it, didn't he?"
"Now, my dear, your father died, and I think you know this perfectly well, of pneumonia. The doctor informed me that the malaria was at most a—a complicating factor. The pneumonia was induced by exposure, and that in turn was caused by his passing out, as they call it, on a January night, in a drunken stupor, on his way home from a bar."
"A drunken stupor, or a blinding fever. I was seven; I remember hearing you answer the telephone—the hospital, I suppose it was, where they'd taken him. I'd been put to bed long before, but wasn't sleeping. You were having drinks or something with Cousin Trent, after Aunt Cora and Uncle Tom Winwood left. I even remember hearing Aunt Cora say good night, and then your voice going on a long time, to Cousin Trent. I don't suppose I heard many of the words, but I knew the tone, the one you always used when you were explaining Father's shortcomings."
"Callista!"