Baby Talk

“Your baby’s just fine.”

“Where is she?” Neal said, then remembered that one of the nurses had already told him.

“Down in pediatrics, in the nursery. Somebody’s on the way up here with her right now. After we looked her over in the ER, we sent her up there to make sure she was okay, but there wasn’t much doubt about it. The car was only traveling about ten miles an hour, backwards, and your daughter was strapped into her car seat. The impact was negligible.”

“Backwards?” Neal said, glancing back at Annie’s unconscious face. “What happened, anyway? Is she going to be all right?”

The doctor avoided the second question. “Apparently, your wife was buying something in a store, a mini-market on Windy Hill Road, I think it was, and she left your daughter in the car. It either slipped out of park by itself, or your wife forgot to put it in park. I don’t think the police know for sure.”

Neal shook his head slowly. “She would never forget to put it in park, not with Natasha in the car.”

The doctor nodded, but the doubt on his face was obvious.

“She wouldn’t forget,” Neal said defensively. “She was—I mean, is—a fanatic about taking care of that baby.” Neal was appalled that he had accidentally spoken of Annie in the past tense, as if she were already...

Neal glanced at Annie and then looked back at Dr. Rayson. “What happened to my wife? I don’t understand. Is she going to be all right?”

The doctor and nurse exchanged glances.

“It’s hard to say at this point,” Rayson said. “It’s always touch-and-go in cases like this. She sustained a severe concussion, but there don’t seem to be any serious problems associated with it at this point. With a little luck, she ought to come around in a few hours. Of course, she won’t be back on her feet again for a while.” The doctor picked up her chart and read from it. “Three broken ribs, a fractured hip, a broken wrist, and various other contusions.”

Neal winced. “But...I still don’t understand what happened to her. I thought you said she was inside the store.”

“She ran out and tried to stop the car from rolling backwards. According to the police, she got caught between it and another vehicle, a pick-up truck, I think it was, when she was trying to get the door open.”

The visual image this description conjured up in Neal’s mind made his head start spinning. Next, the room started spinning.

“Hey,” he heard the doctor say, as if from a long tunnel.

Neal felt a strong set of hands supporting him. A moment later, he found himself sitting in a chair next to Annie’s bed.

“You almost passed out on me, friend,” the doctor said.

Neal looked up at him. “What?”

The doctor was peering at his foot. “What happened here?”

“Nothing, really. I...stepped on something, that’s all.”

Dr. Rayson looked puzzled.

“Something sharp,” Neal added.

“Let me have a look at it.” Rayson squatted in front of him, but Neal hardly noticed. He was preoccupied with how Annie’s car had come out of gear. And what about the emergency brake? There was no way Neal could believe that Annie could forget to put the car in park, let alone forget to put on the emergency brake. Not with the baby in the car. No way.

“Are you sure no one jumped into the car and tried to steal it?” Neal asked, as Rayson carefully removed Neal’s sock.

“I’m pretty sure. We wondered the same thing. But there were several witnesses at the store—the car just started rolling on its own.”