A Deadly Affection (8 page)

“What on earth possessed you? You know how much your mother has been looking forward to receiving those roses! Why would you want to destroy them?”

I looked up in surprise. “I didn't destroy them! They're right here, see? On the horse's neck.”

His cheeks bulged the way they had when Mrs. Wall asked me how I liked her fruit cake and I said it tasted moldy. “That was a thoughtless and foolhardy thing to do.”

I didn't yet have a full grasp of the fatal flaw that would soon so radically change my life. But I was already well acquainted with words like “rash” and “thoughtless” and “foolhardy”—and, most familiar of all, “selfish.” I truly didn't mean to be selfish. For some reason I couldn't explain, I just didn't stop to think, when I tried to tunnel through the lawn to China, that I would need a new dress to replace my hopelessly soiled one, or to consider, when I stopped to spin tops in the vacant corner lot after school, the distress my absence would cause my governess. Each time, I promised myself to do better, but no matter how often I promised, I always seemed to end up here, staring at my shoes.

Mother laid her hand on Father's arm. “Genna,” she said, “why don't you take Conrad out into the yard? I'll have Eleanor call you when it's time for your supper.”

“Yes, Mama.”

“And please see that he doesn't get dirty. Eleanor has enough to do without giving him another bath.”

“All right, Mama.”

She stooped in front of me, taking hold of the picture. “Why don't I put this somewhere safe for now? Then later, we can dry the flowers and put them in our keepsake box.”

I handed it over without a word. I didn't want to remember it now. It looked clumsy and stupid in her hands.

I took Conrad by the wrist and dragged him out into the hall, through the pantry to the little stone terrace behind our house. He immediately ran off across the patch of lawn beyond it, toward the trickling fountain in the back wall that separated our property from Aunt Margaret's. Yesterday, the lawn had been bustling with men raking up chestnut burrs and cutting the grass, but today, all was quiet save for the splash and gurgle of the fountain.

At least I didn't have to worry about Conrad disturbing Father's project, I thought, starting after him. Two weeks before, Father had decided to make a string of electric lights to decorate the chestnut tree for the party. Since electric service hadn't yet reached our neighborhood, and we didn't have enough space in the cellar for a private dynamo, he'd set to work building an “earth battery,” which, he'd explained, would draw electricity right from the earth, costing nothing but the price of a few metal plates and magnets and the wire to connect them. Unfortunately, as he was constantly adjusting the depth and alignment of the plates in an effort to improve results, we children could never be quite sure where danger lay and had been scolded more than once for tripping over the wires. When, by the week of the party, he'd only captured enough current to light two small bulbs, he finally gave in and bought an Edison battery for the job, to our private but great relief.

Now the plates were gone, the holes were filled in, and the lawn was level again. I cut across the smooth grass toward the back wall, resisting the urge to take off my shoes so as not to soil my stockings. Instead of continuing toward the fountain, however, Conrad suddenly veered to the right, making a beeline toward a wheelbarrow that was standing under the chestnut tree.

“Conrad, wait!” I cried after him, mindful of my mother's instruction to keep him clean. “Let's see if there are any more raspberries in the hedge!”

He paused in midstride, glancing at me over his shoulder, then changed his course toward the patch of raspberry canes that arced over the far side of the lawn. Belatedly, it occurred to me that raspberries posed even more of a threat to his shirtfront than did the dirty wheelbarrow. I hurried after him as resentful thoughts rustled through my head. Why did I always have to look after Conrad? Why should I get in trouble just because he did something wrong? I caught up to him just as he was reaching for a shriveled berry on one of the lower canes.

“I'll get it,” I said, pushing his hand away. I plucked off the few remaining fruits that hadn't gone all pruney or been pecked hollow by the birds, and we sat on the grass to divvy them up. I had just popped the last seedy berry into his mouth when a shrill chirp erupted from the grass at our feet, making both of us jump.

“It's a cricket!” Conrad said, dropping onto his hands and knees to grab at the leaping black blur. He came up empty and grabbed again. “Got him!”

“Careful you don't squish it,” I said, crouching beside him.

He made a peephole in his fist and squinted through it. A shiny black antenna poked out of the hole. “Let me see,” I ordered, leaning closer.

He cracked open his fingers to give me a better view. Unfortunately, he miscalculated, and the cricket jumped out to safety. The creature's leap, however, was now lopsided, his arc of flight too low to clear the grass.

“He's hurt,” I said, crawling after it as it lurched unevenly through the dense blades.

The cricket paused a moment beneath a half-shorn dandelion head, and we bent for a closer look. One of its rear legs was indeed sticking out from the top joint in a most unnatural way.

“Leg's broke,” Conrad announced matter-of-factly.

“Maybe it's just bent a little,” I said, feeling a spasm of remorse.

He pursed his lips, studying the leg. “It's aw' right. I can fix it.”

Even at this young age, Conrad was always trying to fix things. He took after Father that way. I, on the other hand, was consumed by unanswerable questions: What was the cricket feeling? Was it aware that its life had just taken a terrible turn for the worse, or oblivious to its plight?

I grabbed Conrad's arm as he reached for it. “Don't. You'll only make it worse.”

He blinked at me. “No I won't. I'm going to put a stick on it, like when Uncle Travy broke his leg.”

“A splint, you mean.” I peered at the whisker-thin leg. “I suppose a matchstick might do it. Or a sliver of toothpick.”

“I'll go ask Katie,” he said, getting to his feet.

“No,” I said, pushing him back down. “I'll go.” If we were going to nurse the cricket back to health, we'd need something to keep it in, and I had just the thing in mind: an orchid box that had arrived that very morning with tiny air holes already cut through. I could make a lovely little house out of it, with a bed of shredded cotton and an empty balm tin for water. “I'll be right back,” I said, jumping to my feet. “Keep your eye on him, but don't pick him up.”

At the door, I glanced back, remembering that I was never supposed to leave Conrad outdoors by himself. He was sitting with his chin propped on one knee, watching the cricket as his fingers absently flicked a blade of grass. In my mind, there were two kinds of rules: big rules, like never telling a lie or taking candy from the jar without paying, and numerous, peskier little rules that could, when circumstances required, be safely ignored. Not leaving Conrad alone in the rear yard felt like a little rule to me. Besides, I would only be gone for a minute.

I dashed through the empty pantry, down the hall, and up the two flights of stairs to Mama's boudoir. The orchid box was still on the dressing table where I'd last seen it. A balm tin took a little longer, but I finally found a half-empty one in the back of the medicine closet. I wiped it clean and dropped it into the orchid box, tossing in a toothpick, some silk floss, and a tube of liniment for good measure.

Altogether, I couldn't have been gone more than six or seven minutes. When I ran back outside, however, Conrad was no longer sitting in the grass, or anywhere in sight. He must be hiding in the wheelbarrow, I thought in exasperation, stalking toward the chestnut tree. Within a few strides, however, I could see that the wheelbarrow was empty. I was wondering whether he might have climbed the turnstile into Aunt Margaret's yard when a movement in the tree's branches caught my attention.

I looked up, shading my eyes. He couldn't have climbed up there, I reasoned; he was too small to reach the bottom branch. But then my gaze dropped down the gnarled trunk, and despite the sun on my face, I felt a sudden chill.

A weathered wooden ladder was propped against the side of the tree, barely visible against the trunk's mottled bark. Moving closer, I saw the coil of electric lights that hung from a nail near its top rung. The workmen must have been planning to use the ladder when they returned, to string the lights on the tree.

Covering the remaining distance at a trot, I grabbed the sides of the ladder and peered up into the leafy canopy. “Conrad?”

Leaves rustled high above me, and a small voice answered, “I'm up here.”

Directly above my head, so high that it made me dizzy to look, I made out the bottom of a boot and a pale leg encircled by dark short pants. Tilting my head farther back and to the side, I made out the rest of my brother's diminutive form. He was standing on a branch some two feet out from the trunk, holding the limb above him with both hands.

“Genna?” he said in the same small voice, bending forward to search for me through the leaves.

The branch swayed with his movement. I tried to shout a warning, but it wouldn't come out. “Don't move!” I finally managed to croak. “Conrad, stay right where you are!”

“I want to get down,” he said in the whiny voice that always came before tears.

“No! Just stay there, and I'll come get you.” I pulled myself up the ladder, kicking my skirt out of the way. Things always looked higher from the ground, I reassured myself, trying not to feel afraid. I'd just shimmy up there and guide him down, and no one would ever be the wiser.

But when I leaned back to check on him from the top of the ladder, I discovered that one of his feet was now dangling in open air. I held my breath as he stretched it slowly, tentatively, toward a lower branch that was at a slight angle to the one he was standing on. I wanted to shout to him to stop, but he'd already let go with one hand to lower himself onto the limb. My breath dragged like taffy through my lungs as his foot moved closer, closer…and landed safely on the lower branch.

I was so thankful he hadn't slipped that I didn't even yell at him for disobeying. No sooner had the flood of relief washed through me, however, than it became apparent that his new perch was much flimsier than the one he'd been standing on. When he shifted his weight it gave too easily beneath him, jiggling him up and down and nearly costing him his footing.

He froze, spread-eagled between two branches, one hand clinging to the limb above him and the other reaching for a nonexistent support. I was suddenly reminded of Aunt Margaret's cat the time she got stuck in the chestnut tree—so completely still you'd have thought she was enjoying the view, if it wasn't for her pitiful mewing.

I heard a soft, hiccuping sound and realized he'd started to cry. “Hold on, Connie,” I implored him. “Just keep holding on!” I stood in an agony of indecision, not sure whether I should try to reach him myself or run to get Papa.

The flimsy branch bobbed again as he scrabbled for a better foothold, making my mind up for me. Grabbing the lowest branch, I planted one foot on the tree trunk and started to hoist myself up. My leather sole slid over the rough bark, dumping me back onto the ladder. I was about to try again when I heard the fresh rustling of leaves overhead, followed by a soft gasp of surprise.

When I looked up I saw Conrad falling freely through the branches, his short pants billowing around his knees. I heard his arms thwack against leafy twiglets, and then a crack as his head hit a branch square-on. For a moment he seemed to hang in thin air, suspended over the obstructing branch, before he rolled off and plummeted downward once more.

Flinging my arms out in front of me, I half jumped, half fell off the ladder. I felt something sharp dig into my forehead as my foot caught in my skirt, pulling me short of my intended trajectory. I dropped onto the grass on my hands and knees a split second before Conrad landed with a thud a few feet away.

I waited for the crying to start, but he didn't make a sound. I crawled closer, close enough to touch him, and stopped. He was lying on his stomach with one arm beneath him and his head twisted to one side. A few white dandelion seeds swirled around him, landing on his cheek and parted lips. I reached out and gingerly shook his shoulder. “Connie?”

He didn't respond.

I'd never seen him so utterly still, not even when he was sleeping. I climbed slowly to my feet as my ears filled with a painful thudding. Turning, I raced back to the pantry door and yanked it open. “Conrad fell! Conrad fell out of the tree!” I shouted over and over from the threshold, until my parents appeared, breathless and pale-faced, and followed me outside.

He was lying exactly as I had left him. My father knelt beside him and turned him over, pressing his cheeks between his hands and calling his name, while Mama hovered behind the two of them, clutching her chest with spastic fingers. I stood a little way off, waiting for my father to fix things as he always did. But no matter how many times he pumped Conrad's arms, or how urgently he stroked his face, my brother wouldn't stir.

I was feeling a deep ache in my own chest, as if I had fallen from the tree. I wanted to run to my mother and bury myself in her arms—but she had dropped to her knees and was pulling at the grass, making strange, whimpering noises in her throat. I stared at my father's stricken profile, wishing he would turn to me, wanting him to make my pain go away.

At last, he did turn and look at me. I started toward him. “Papa—” I stopped as he staggered to his feet and lurched toward me, his face contorted almost beyond recognition.

“What was he doing in the tree?” he rasped.