Mike Wells - Baby Talk

The young physician smiled. “Sorry, but that’s not how we practice medicine these days. We don’t give antibiotics until the symptoms of the infection appear and are diagnosed. Unless, of course, the patient is particularly susceptible to infection, for some reason.” He picked up Neal’s chart and looked it over. “You didn’t list anything of that nature.”

“No,” Neal said. “I’m healthy. As far as I know, anyway.” He remembered snide remark Annie had started to make about taking him to “another” kind of hospital.

“Good,” the doctor said. “Then I’m sure you won’t have a problem.”

CHAPTER 5

It was almost dawn when the fledgling Family Becker got home from the hospital. Annie went to sleep almost as soon as her head hit the pillow. Natasha had been asleep when Neal came out of the emergency room and (to his relief) had stayed that way ever since. Now, she was in her crib, and Neal could hear her breathing little, hoarse baby-breaths.

He lay there on his back until just before six a.m., his throbbing foot propped up on a pillow to minimize swelling, as the doctor had instructed. Neal thought it was all in vain, however. He was convinced that the wound was teeming with bacteria and it was only a matter of time before symptoms of infection appeared and he returned to the emergency room. A part of him told him that he was being a hypochondriac, but another part of him seemed certain about it.

As he lay there, a phrase the doctor had said popped into his mind:

We don’t know what kind of foreign matter may have been on the end of that trophy you stepped on...

Neal sat up in the bed and gazed at the tennis trophy. He could see it clearly now in the dawn light, sitting on the top shelf of his trophy case, where he had put it before Annie had taken him to the hospital. Before they had left, he had glanced at the end of it to see if anything more had broken off, but he hadn’t really paid that much attention to its cleanliness.

Neal quietly got up and, with considerable difficulty, limped across the room to the trophy case. When he passed the crib, he fought the urge to look at Natasha, afraid he would see those black eyes again. But he could not help himself.

He was relieved to see that she was still fast asleep, her eyes shut, but her tiny hands clenched to her chest, in the fetal position. Just a little, harmless baby. It was hard to believe that he—a grown, 21 year old man— was actually afraid of her.

Careful not to make a sound, Neal picked up the tennis trophy and limped into the kitchen, using various pieces of the rental furniture to support himself. His left shoulder ached almost as much as his foot—every time he moved his left arm, he winced. Neal hadn’t even mentioned this to anyone at the hospital. But he was certain it was nothing but a bad bruise.

His foot, however, was another matter.

When he finally reached the kitchen, he went over to the sink and turned on the florescent light fixture mounted directly above it. He held the trophy under the bright white light and examined the broken tennis shaft very closely. It was caked with dried blood now, so it was hard to tell how clean it was before it had ripped through the bottom of his foot.

He scraped off a little bit of the blood. It was a deep maroon color and chipped off the metal in tiny little chunks. Neal turned the trophy one way, then another, to try and get a better look at it. As he did this, he noticed something new. The racket shaft was hollow—this he had noticed before, when he had tried to glue it back together. But now, something was plugging up the end. Some kind of “foreign matter.” He thought it was probably a piece of himself, a bit of tendon or gristle or maybe just skin. But it didn’t look like skin or gristle. It looked like dirt, like dried mud.

Neal frowned, his upper lip curling in repulsion, as he scraped at it with his fingernail. But this wouldn’t work. He needed something small and sharp to insert into the hole in the shaft...

He opened the cupboard and retrieved a toothpick from a little cardboard box, then held the trophy under the light again and scraped some of the brown stuff out.

That was when he noticed the smell.

Neal held the toothpick up to his nose. His upper lip curling again, he inhaled. He recoiled, staring at the little brown-smeared sliver of wood.

It was shit .

And not just any shit.

It was baby shit.

Neal dropped the toothpick in the sink, his throat bone-dry. He reeled for a moment, trying to convince himself that it might have just been blood or something else, but there was no question about it. He knew that odor very well, that almost-sweet fragrance a baby’s stool will emit for the first few months, when the child is consuming almost nothing but milk. Annie had (not surprisingly) made a special trip to the pediatrician about it, afraid that the smell signaled some kind of disorder.

“What are you doing?” Annie said, from behind him.

Neal was so shocked he dropped the trophy into the stainless-steel sink. When the heavy object made contact with the metal, it created a reverberating boom! that was so loud it made Neal’s ears ring.

Natasha started crying—she was cradled in Annie’s arms.

“I was just trying to find a way to fix...” Neal’s voice faded before he had finished his lie. He stared at the crying baby, fear rising in him like a rudely awakened animal. His daughter, that little... creature ...wanted him hurt. Maybe even dead.

He remembered a documentary he had seen on TV about some natives in Africa who smeared human feces on the end of their spears and arrows to ensure that their victims—in this case, enemy tribes—developed serious infections if they were not mortally wounded. Natasha had undoubtedly employed the same principle here.

“What’s the matter with you?” Annie said. She was still staring at him, her eyes filled with fear. “You look...strange.”

Neal realized that he probably looked insane, his back pressed against the sink, staring at his baby daughter as if she were the Antichrist. But he couldn’t help himself.

He was terrified.

Neal pointed a shaking finger at Natasha. “That...that thing is trying to kill me!”

“What?” Annie said. She let out a short laugh, but then her eyes became wide with fear. She took a step backwards, through the doorway, and held the baby defensively. “You’re losing your mind.”

“Oh, am I?” Neal picked up the trophy and thrust it towards her. “She smeared her shit all over the end of this thing to make sure I got an infection!”

Annie’s eyes became even wider.

“Smell it, if you don’t believe me! Smell it, Annie!”

She stared at Neal for a second, then turned and carried Natasha into the bedroom, and shut the door. Neal heard the lock click.

She was afraid of him…

Neal stumbled over to the dinette table and fell into one of the chairs. “Holy Christ,” he said in a hush. “What am I doing? What am I thinking ?” Suddenly, he felt cold and started shivering. He really was losing his grip on reality.

She’s your daughter Neal, your own flesh and blood. You’re imagining this whole thing because you feel so guilty about wanting her aborted. You have a mental complex that’s so huge and twisted you actually believe Natasha wants to get even with you, wants to make you pay for almost ending her embryonic life and keeping her out of this world.

Annie’s absolutely right. You need to see a shrink, buddy. And fast.

Neal swallowed hard. He wasn’t sure of which he was more afraid—going stir crazy or that his baby daughter was actually trying to do him in.

He remained slumped in his chair for another half hour, as the early-morning light gradually filled the room. He could hear Natasha’s muffled crying for a few minutes, but then the sound stopped in an abrupt way, accompanied by some coughing, which told Neal that Annie was nursing her. Finally, the alarm clock went off. He decided he had no choice but to try and pull himself together and get ready for work.