Baby Talk

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