Mike Wells - Baby Talk

“Is the delivery job really that bad?” Annie said.

“Well...no. I guess not. At least I don’t have to be around those Snell bozos very much. I spend ninety percent of my time on the road. But it’s minimum wage, Annie. We can’t live on that.”

“I know,” she said. Neal hoped she might feel guilty, but if she did, her face didn’t show it. She refused to consider the idea of working again herself until Natasha was old enough to go to school. Neal actually admired Annie’s resolve to devote all her time and attention to the baby—he didn’t think that leaving infants in day care centers, with total strangers, was a good idea. But he didn’t think it was smart to raise kids in substandard conditions, either. And what about money for Natasha’s education? Where would that come from? Out of the sky? But Neal had grown tired of that discussion, and he knew Annie had, too. Whenever they got into it, he always ended up feeling like the “selfish prick” insurance salesman who had knocked up his sister.

“I have to find something that pays more,” he said. “And something that’s more mentally stimulating. If I don’t, I’m going to go fu—I mean, I’m going to go stir crazy.”

At that instant, Natasha let out a “gaaaaa-oooooh” that was loud enough to drown out the sizzling and popping of the chicken. Neal and Annie both laughed.

Annie picked Natasha up out of her baby seat and brought her back to the doorway.

“What did you tay, honey?” Annie said, tickling her chin. “Tay tometing for Mommy and Daddy.”

Natasha smiled and worked her mouth, but no sound came out.

Annie looked at Neal sympathetically. “Don’t you think you might have just imagined that she said ‘I love you’? That sounded a lot like it a minute ago.”

“I didn’t imagine it,” Neal said defensively. “She said it loud and clear, all three words: I—love—you.”

Annie nodded, but Neal could tell she no more believed him than if he had told her that Natasha had played duplicate bridge with him that afternoon.

Neal saw a flicker of light behind Annie, and he smelled something burning. “Annie, I think your chicken’s on fire.”

“Oh!” she said, rushing back into the kitchen.

Neal got up from the couch and followed her. Annie quickly set Natasha down in her baby seat, then reached for the handle of the flaming skillet.

“Don’t!” Neal said. He took a dishtowel off the counter and moved the skillet over to the sink.

While Annie tried to save the chicken, Neal went over to Natasha. The little baby looked up at him and slowly kicked her feet, like she was riding a tiny bicycle. Neal didn’t touch her very much, but now, he had an impulse to grab her bare foot. Which he did. The tiny foot felt strange in his hand, hot and clammy, like the paw of some furry animal.

Natasha’s eyes remained fixed on Neal’s face. He watched her for a long moment, feeling a little uneasy. He relaxed a little and smiled at her.

Her mouth opened.

At first, Neal thought she was going to speak to him again. Instead, some yellowish goo bubbled out and ran down her chin.

Neal backed away. “Annie, Natasha’s—”

Annie turned around, saw what was happening, and scooped Natasha up into her arms. She picked up a dishtowel and cleaned the baby’s face with it.

Natasha’s tiny brown eyes remained with Neal’s, her expression oddly distant.

He took another step back from her, wondering if the yellowish goo had been served up especially for him.

CHAPTER 4

Neal awoke sometime in the middle of the night, his bladder full. This had always been a normal occurrence for him, but now, he was drinking a beer (well, sometimes two or three beers) every night, and he was waking up more often.

He peered in the direction of the night stand to check the time. As always, Annie had left the telephone off the hook, and the receiver was blocking the view of the alarm clock. But Neal was sure it could not have been past 2:00 am. The baby woke up every night around that time to be nursed, and Neal had never managed to sleep through the clamorous process.

He lay there for a couple of minutes, debating about whether to get up and go to the toilet or try to ignore the dull ache in his groin and go back to sleep. He finally opted for the latter. But as soon as he closed his eyes, he became aware of the room’s unusual quiet. Normally, he could hear both Annie and the baby breathing. At this particular moment, however, he could only hear the far-away sound of traffic on Roswell Road.

Neal rolled over in Annie’s direction and listened more carefully. She was facing the other way and he still could not hear her, or the baby, breathing.

He moved his head closer to Annie’s.

At last, he heard the slow, gentle sound of inhalation and exhalation. His wife was a heavy sleeper—sometimes when the baby woke up for her nightly feeding, Neal would literally have to shake Annie awake. He thought it a bit odd for a mother so concerned about her child’s well being to allow herself to fall into such a deeply unconscious state.

Neal sat up in the bed and peered across the room, at Natasha’s crib. It was positioned at an angle between the window and Neal’s trophy case, an arrangement that gave Annie the easiest access to it in the dark, and also minimized the chances of Neal slamming into it during his nightly treks to the bathroom. Neal could barely make out the crib’s shadowy form in the darkness. He strained his ears and listened for any sound that might be coming from it, breathing or otherwise.

But there was not a peep.

Now, he was starting to worry about crib death.

Neal quietly slipped out of bed. As he stepped onto the cool hardwood floor, the room appeared to teeter slightly—the effects of the three beers he had drunk before dinner hadn’t quite worn off.

He paused briefly to steady himself, then took a step towards the crib.

When his right foot came down, a hot streak of pain had shot up through the sole—it felt like he had stepped on an ice pick.

Neal screamed.

He lost his balance, falling away from the crib and landing on the floor, on Annie’s side of the bed. He slammed against the hardwood with such force that the entire room shook, the glass in the trophy case rattling. His left shoulder took the brunt of the impact. For a precious instant, there was only numbness, but then a wave of pain rose and crested through his shoulder that was so intense he thought he might pass out.

“Shit!” he gasped.

Annie turned on the lamp beside the bed. The baby started crying.

“What happened?” she said, in a panicky screech, one reserved for baby-related emergencies.

“My foot,” Neal grunted.

He was still on the floor, writhing around in pain, alternating between gasping and struggling to see what had impaled him. Whatever it was, it was still lodged in his foot. As Neal squirmed, the heavy, offending object banged and scraped across the floor.

“Oh my God!” Annie gasped.

Neal rolled over onto his side, onto his good shoulder, and stared at his left foot. His tennis trophy was dangling from it, the one that had broken when he had moved the trophy case into the bedroom. The top of the trophy—the sharp, jagged end of the broken-off tennis racquet—was buried deep in his flesh, imbedded in the tendons.

“Shit!” Neal yelled again. But this time, he could hear cold fear in his voice. In his mind’s eye, he could clearly see the minute details of the tennis trophy’s sheared off racquet—the crook about halfway down the shaft, the jagged spirals of metal that fanned out from the end, the little patches of rust...

“Get it out of me!” Neal shouted, over the incessant wailing of the baby.