Mike Wells - Baby Talk

Annie leaped down onto the floor, a terror-stricken look on her face. She reached for the trophy but couldn’t seem to decide how or where to take hold of it.

“Jesus!” Neal said in frantic frustration, shoving himself upright on the floor. Another wave of pain crested in his shoulder. Bright red blood ran down the trophy’s side and dripped steadily onto the floor. He started to grab the base of the trophy with his hand, then changed his mind and pressed on it with his good foot, holding its heavy base against hardwood.

Neal closed his eyes and braced himself.

In one quick but agonizing motion, he yanked his foot away from the metal object, letting out a grunt that sounded more animal than human. He passed out for a few seconds. What he saw when he opened his eyes, he would never forget. His foot flung out a thick spray of blood that splashed across Annie’s ashen face. She looked like someone in a horror film who had just witnessed a slashing.

But the image just beyond her was far more disturbing. Over the top rail of the crib, two dark eyes were watching him. He could see the top of Natasha’s fuzzy head and her two tiny, paw-like hands gripping the wooden rail. The eyes seemed completely vacant, yet there was a feeling that they conveyed in that fleeting moment that Neal could only interpret as...satisfaction.

Neal screamed, screamed like he never had before in his life.

Annie clasped her hands to her cheeks, smearing her face crimson, unaware that Neal’s blood had splashed across it. She stared at his foot, her eyes wide with horror. There was a puffy, gaping hole in its sole, about the size of a dime. Blood was spurting out of it, forming a puddle on the floor.

“Ambulance!” Annie blurted. “We have to call an ambulance!”

She leaped up from the bed and took a step towards the night stand. Instead of the hardwood, she stepped on Neal’s left hand and cried “Ow!” (something that Neal would later remember and find darkly amusing) and began fumbling with the telephone. But at that moment, Neal barely heard or saw any of this—he was still in shock. He looked back over at the crib, but Natasha had disappeared—her head and hands were no longer visible.

“What’s wrong with this damn thing!” Annie said frantically. She was punching 9-1-1 into the telephone over and over again, the receiver to her ear.

Neal finally came to his senses. “It’s dead, Annie. You left it off the hook. You have to hang up and wait until...oh, never mind!”

“What?” she said, rattled.

“Just hang up, Annie. I don’t need an ambulance. I’m not dying.”

Annie hesitated, staring down at his bleeding foot—it was still gushing blood. “But you have to go to a hospital!”

“Maybe I do, but you’re not going to get anybody on that phone until you hang up for a minute and get a dial tone.”

Annie lowered the receiver, but did not hang up. She was still staring at Neal’s foot. For a second, he thought she would throw up.

“Get me a towel, for God’s sake.”

“You need to wash it out,” she said, glancing at the blood-drenched trophy. It was lying on its side, a few feet away from Neal, between him and the crib.

“I know, but I don’t want to get blood all over everything.”

“But—”

“Just do it, Annie!”

She started to hang up the phone, then just dropped the receiver on the floor and trotted into the bathroom. This time, she was careful not to step on Neal’s hand.

He eased himself across the floor, to the bed, and propped his back up against it. As he did this, he did not take his eyes off the crib. He wanted to put as much distance between himself and the baby as possible.

Annie came back into the room carrying a frayed navy blue bath towel that his mother had given him for his dorm room at college. Neal started to take it from her but she pushed his hand away. She wiped up the blood on the floor, then carefully took hold of Neal’s ankle. After patting the sole of his foot dry, she began to wrap the towel around and around the wound.

Neal stared past her, at the bloody tennis trophy. “How did it get on the floor?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know ?” Neal said, raising his voice.

“No, I don’t. I didn’t do it—don’t try to blame it on me.”

“I know you didn’t do it,” Neal said. His eyes focused on the crib. “That goddam baby did it.”

Annie gasped. “ What? ”

“You heard me.”

Annie stared at him. “You’re crazy.” She finished wrapping the towel around his foot and tucked the end in neatly.

Neal felt himself becoming more and more angry. “I just saw that baby— your baby—looking over the top of the crib like she was glad I hurt myself.”

Annie looked at Neal as if she couldn’t decide whether to feel sorry for him or to be afraid. She stood up and went over to the crib. Neal sat up straighter as Annie leaned over the wooden contraption. His heart started to pound. Neal wasn’t sure he ever wanted to see Natasha’s face again.

“How’s my wittle baby?” Annie cooed softly, picking Natasha up. The child’s eyes were shut (thank God) and she was asleep, or at least pretending to be asleep. But Neal noticed something else that made him lean forward even more.

“Look!” he said, pointing at Natasha. “There’s blood on her forehead.”

Annie inspected the baby’s face, then wet one finger and wiped the red droplets away.

“See! I told you. That proves it, Annie.”

She put Natasha over her shoulder again and turned towards Neal. “It proves what?”

“That she...put...the trophy over there.” Neal pointed towards a spot on the floor where he thought the trophy had been when he stepped on it. He had hesitated over the word “put” because he couldn’t envision how Natasha could have actually done it.

Annie sadly shook her head. “You’re in shock, Neal.” She kissed Natasha’s sleeping face and set the baby gently back in her crib.

“I am not in shock,” Neal said, glaring at his wife. “I know exactly what happened.”

“I do, too,” Annie said.

“What do you mean?” Neal said, though he thought he knew what she was going to say. He grimaced as another wave of pain welled up in his foot.

“You left your stupid trophy on the floor and stepped on it.”

“I did not!”

“Yes you did. And now you’re trying to blame it on a little baby, the same way you did when you accidentally broke the stupid trophy moving the case in here. “

“I’m not ‘trying’ to blame it on her, Annie. I know she— “

“Shhh! You’re going to wake her up again.”

Neal was breathing hard, so angry he nearly forgot about his throbbing foot. He struggled to hold his voice in a whisper. “You think I left that trophy in the middle of the floor? I haven’t touched that trophy since the day it broke.”

“That’s a lie, Neal.”

Neal was taken aback by this. “Excuse me?”

“You tried to glue it back together a couple of weeks ago. Remember?”

Neal was so mad he tried to push himself up off the floor.

“What are you going to do, Neal? Shove me into the wall again?”

He became very still. Even though more than a year had passed since then, Annie just couldn’t leave it alone. He hadn’t shoved her—he had grabbed her arm to stop her from hitting him, and then she’d lost her balance! What did she expect, anyway, acting so self-righteous? It was just after they had gotten into the biggest argument ever about her pregnancy, when Neal had told her, in no uncertain terms, that he wanted her to have an abortion. She had become so angry she’d started to take a swing at him, and when he grabbed her arm to stop her, she slipped and fell against the wall, bumping her shoulder, but it was nothing serious.