Flora looks as shaken as I am by Pithy’s sudden fervor. “Settle down, now,” she says, but this does no good. Pithy is staring beyond me as though at some spectral presence, but there’s only wallpaper there. “Remember what Aristotle said!” she cries. “Undeservedly you will atone for the sins of your fathers. And Horace!”

Horace? “What did Horace say, Pithy?”

“Mothers are fonder than fathers of their children, because they’re more certain they are their own.”

This sends a shock through me. I feel a strange dread, perhaps even a presentiment of some approaching calamity. Suddenly the old woman grabs my hand, looks wildly into my eyes, and cries, “If all the girls who attended the Yale prom were laid end to end, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised!”

Flora takes hold of Pithy’s shoulders and gently forces her down onto the pillows. “You’d better go, Mayor.”

“No!” Pithy insists, still wide-eyed. “Something’s burning!”

Flora sniffs the air. “No, Miss Pithy. Ain’t nothing burnin’.”

“Don’t lie to me! The fires of hell are God’s love, scalding torture to the sinner.” The old woman’s head bobs up and down for emphasis, and then she sags back into the covers.

Flora turns to me, stricken with grief.

“Does this happen often?” I whisper.

The maid shakes her head and crosses herself. “You go on. We’ll be all right.”

I lean over the bed and look down at Pithy’s half-closed eyes. “What do you see, Pithy?”

The old woman squints like a sailor staring into a storm, then collapses as though drained of all energy.

Flora takes my hand and pulls me away from the bed. “I’ll take care of her, Penn.”

“I think Drew should examine her.”

“She’ll be all right. This, too, shall pass.”

Honoring Flora’s request, I back slowly out of the room. When I reach the door, the maid turns from the bed and looks at me. “Don’t pay her no mind. I think when you asked about her son, it upset her. That’s all it was. Miss Pithy’s strong, but she never got over her husband being killed like that, while she was with child. That’s why she never remarried.”

“Thank you, Flora.”

“Go take care of your daddy. The Lord has more work for him to do yet.”