A Deadly Affection by Cuyler Overholt Page A

yet. It will look better when it’s done…”
    â€œWhat is it?” Father stood in the doorway, having chosen this moment to look in on the preparations. “What’s happened?” he asked, striding to my mother’s side.
    â€œIt’s all right,” my mother said quickly. “She was just trying to make me a present.”
    Father’s gaze moved from Mother’s face to the rose garland. “No, it is not all right,” he fumed. “Not all right at all! Genevieve, how many times have we told you that you must think before you act?”
    I stared down at my shoes.
    â€œWhat 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.”
    â€œYes, Mama.”
    â€œAnd please see that he doesn’t get dirty. Eleanor has enough to do without giving him another bath.”
    â€œAll 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