Baby Talk by Mike Wells Read Free Book Online Page A

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.
    “I didn’t shove you ‘against’ anything,
Annie.”
    “Yes you did.”
    “No I didn’t, and you know it.”
    Annie glared at Neal, her eyes watery.
    “Anybody else probably would have shoved
you, the way you acted that night. You think I’m so terrible for
wanting an abortion, but...” Neal motioned around the room. “...is
this
how you want your kid to grow up? Living in a dump,
with a father who’s a college dropout?”
    “You don’t care about our child, Neal—all
you care about is yourself. You can finish your degree as soon as
Natasha’s old enough to go to kindergarten and I can start working
again. A few years won’t make any difference.”
    Neal rolled his eyes. “That’s easy for you
to say.”
    “You don’t know what’s