One of the file-folder shufflers looked up
at him. “The name?”
“Becker,” Neal said, trying to keep his
voice even. “Ann Crawford Becker.”
The nurse glanced at a piece of paper in
front of her. “Your wife’s in 623. Your daughter...” The nurse ran
her finger down the list. “Are you sure she’s in intensive
care?”
“No, there’s nothing wrong with her. At
least that’s what somebody told me on the pho—”
“Your daughter’s fine,” the nurse on the
phone said, covering the mouthpiece. “She’s in the nursery, on the
fourth floor. Carla, call down there and have someone bring her up
here.” She looked back at Neal and motioned down the hallway. “Room
623 is down at the first corner.”
Neal nodded. Now, all three of the nurses
were looking at him. No, they weren’t looking at him, they were
gawking at him.
“Are you feeling all right, Mr. Becker?” the
nurse named Carla asked.
“I’m fine.” Neal wiped his forehead
self-consciously. He had been sweating like racehorse ever since he
had awoken from his long nap. “Where’s the room?”
The nurses exchanged glances with each
other.
“Right down that way,” the nurse on the
phone repeated, “at the first corner.”
“Thanks.”
Neal turned and began to limp down the
hallway, aware of the three sets of eyes on his back. When he
reached Room 623, he peered through the doorway and swallowed hard.
Someone was under an oxygen tent. There was so much gauze around
the person’s head it looked like it might have belonged to a mummy.
The eyes were the only part of the face that were visible.
They were both shut—and blackened.
Neal hobbled into the room, aware of the
soft hissing and beeping of the machines that surrounded whoever
was laying in the bed. With a sinking feeling, Neal admitted to
himself that it had to be Annie—there was no one else in the
room.
Neal approached his wife with trepidation.
She was as motionless as a corpse. He slowly reached out and took
her cold fingers in his hand.
“Are you Mr. Becker?”
Neal turned partially around—a pudgy nurse
had just glided into the room.
“Yes,” Neal said blankly.
“We’re glad to see you. I’ll go find the
doctor who’s—”
“I’m right here,” a male voice said. A
middle-aged man came through the door, tall and wearing a pair of
teardrop-shaped glasses.
“I’m Dr. Rayson,” he said, offering Neal his
hand.
Neal let go of Annie’s fingers and shook
Rayson’s hand.
“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.”
“On its own,” Neal mumbled. If Annie didn’t
leave the car out of park
and
the emergency brake off, and
nobody had tried to steal it, then the car had just magically
started moving on its own...
Or...
“Here she is!”
A slender, brown-haired nurse had just
entered the room, carrying Natasha in her arms. An orderly was on
her heels, lugging the car seat with him. He set it on the floor,
at the foot of the bed, and sauntered back out of the room.
“You’ve got a serious infection, friend,”
the doctor said.
Neal looked back down at his foot. Dr.
Rayson gently turned it sideways, so Neal had a better view. “Those
red streaks on your ankle...it’s not a good sign.”
“Oh, shit,” Neal muttered.
“Yeah,” the doctor said sympathetically.
“Are you on any antibiotics?”
“No.” Neal glanced at Natasha, who was still
in the nurse’s arms. She was wearing the orange jumper that Annie’s
mother had made. Her little eyes were open, staring at him. There
seemed to be a smile on her face.
“You need to be put on something
immediately,” Rayson said, “before this infection gets any worse.”
He motioned to the pudgy nurse. “Get a wheelchair and take Mr.
Becker down to ER.” The doctor turned back to Neal. “They’ll fix
you up down there, and then you can take your daughter home.”
“Who...me?” Neal said.
The doctor and the nurses exchanged
glances.
“Yes, you. You are the baby’s father, aren’t
you?”
Neal looked at Natasha, at the smile on her
little face. “Yeah, but...”
They were all watching Neal with interest,
waiting for him to continue..
“I...I mean, my foot. How can I take care of
her with an infected foot?”
The doctor sighed. “You’re not
dying
,
Mr. Becker. After you’re on antibiotics, you just need to stay off
your feet as much as possible, keep your right leg elevated. But
you can certainly stand up long enough to heat formula and change
diapers.”
Neal groped for some other excuse. The last
thing he wanted was to be left alone with Natasha.
The nurse who was holding the baby said, in
a soft voice, “Is there anyone who can help you out? Your mother,
sister, somebody?”
There was a page over the intercom for what
sounded like “Dr. Rayson.”
The doctor glanced in the direction of the
hallway, then looked back at Neal. “Well? Is there?”
Neal did a quick inventory of anyone who
might be able take Annie off his hands. But he drew a blank. Neal’s
own mother was out of the question—he couldn’t ask her to come all
the way from Louisville. And his sister lived in Detroit. Except
for Annie’s mother, that was it.
Dr. Rayson turned impatiently to the nurse
who was holding Natasha. “Did you get a hold of the grandmother
yet?”
“No, doctor, she’s still not answering.” The
slender, soft-spoken woman had moved a little closer and Neal could
read her name tag—SUSAN MATLOW, it said.
“Well, keep trying to call her.”
Neal wasn’t surprised they couldn’t reach
Annie’s mother. She was never home, always running around with one
of her boyfriends.
The doctor looked at Neal. “You don’t have
any idea where your mother-in-law might be, do you?”
Neal shook his head, though he was
distracted by Natasha. The baby was watching him intently. The
smile on her face seemed to be widening.
“Can’t she just stay here for a few days?”
Neal blurted. He looked pleadingly from one face to another.
Susan gave Dr. Rayson a hopeful glance. She
seemed to have already formed an attachment to the baby.
“I’m afraid not,” Rayson told Neal. “Your
daughter’s in perfectly good health. It’s against the rules, not to
mention the fact that we’re completely full as it is.”
“It will just be for a couple of days,” Neal
said, panicking, “maybe just one day. Just until you can find
Annie’s mother.”
Susan said, “We do have enough room in the
nursery at the moment, doctor.”
Rayson whirled around to her. “Dammit,
Susan, you know better than that! This isn’t a day care center,
it’s a hospital.”
“Sorry, doctor.”
There was another page for him over the
intercom. A second later, an out-of-breath nurse poked her head in
the door. “Doctor Rayson, you’re needed in 604, stat!”
“Allright, allright.” Rayson stood up and
spoke quickly to Neal, as if irritated by the entire situation.
“You’re just going to have to wing it, Mr. Becker. We’ll look after
your baby while you go downstairs and have your foot treated, but
after that, you’re going to have to take her home.” He paused and
looked at Annie, then turned back to Neal. “There’s no point in you
staying here—we’ll call you as soon as your wife comes around.”
Neal stared at Natasha, fear coiling up
inside him like a dark, slick snake. She wiggled her legs and arms
happily, as if she was looking forward to being all alone with
Daddy.
Dr. Rayson took two steps towards the door,
but turned back to Neal.
“You do know how to take care of a baby,
don’t you?”
The eyes of all the medical personnel
focused on Neal’s face.
“Well, sure,” Neal said, trying to hide his
uncertainty. “Of course I know how.”
C
HAPTER 8
It took Neal a good ten minutes to strap the
baby seat into the passenger seat of his car. He and Annie and
Natasha hadn’t been on many happy little family outings together,
and he didn’t have much experience with the device. He was glad
that the orderly who had wheeled Natasha and him out to the car had
gone back inside the building and wasn’t watching the struggle.
During this lengthy process, Neal avoided
looking at Natasha’s face. She had fallen asleep, but he had a
gnawing fear that her eyes would pop open and she would say...well,
he didn’t know
what
she might say. The thought of her
speaking at all terrified him.
When he finally finished strapping her in,
he went around to the back of the car and tossed the two crutches
the nurse in the emergency room had given him into the trunk, along
with his unused right sneaker. The nurse had done a good job
bandaging up his foot, but there was now no way he could put his
sneaker on. It didn’t matter—he could drive just as well
shoeless.
It was a depressing night, a cold drizzle
falling from the sky. His battle with Natasha’s car seat had gotten
him breathing hard, and this had made all the windows to fog up. He
started the engine and let it idle for a moment, waiting for the
defroster to clear the moisture enough so that he could see through
the windshield.
He would
not
look at Natasha.
Instead, he tried to concentrate on the things he would have to do
in order to care for the baby until they could track down Annie’s
mother. Surely the unpleasant woman would come home tomorrow.
Unless she was out for the whole weekend with Dan or Doug or
whatever the guy’s name was that she was currently banging. Paula
Crawford was trash, as far as Neal was concerned. She cared more
about her own sexual escapades than she did about her daughter and
granddaughter.
When Neal and Annie had decided to get
married, Annie had invited her mother to come down to Atlanta—less
than a two hour drive—to celebrate. But Paula had refused because
Charlie (the guy she was banging before Dan or Doug or whatever the
guy’s name was) was coming through town and she wanted to “see”
him. And this was already after she was dating the new guy!
Neal wondered what Paula would say when she
found out her daughter was hospitalized, laying in intensive care,
battered and unconscious.
Do you think she’ll stay unconscious
until Monday? One of my old boyfriends is coming into town this
weekend, and I already have plans...
Trash, absolute trash. Of course, Neal knew
it was a two-way street—Paula didn’t care too much for him, either.
Still, that was no excuse for her attitude towards her daughter,
and her granddaughter. If Paula had ever come down to Atlanta, Neal
would have been more than happy to live somewhere else for the
duration of her visit—they wouldn’t have even had to see each
other. But, no, she was too damn busy running around with her
boyfriends to help out. She hadn’t even seen Natasha since the day
she was born!
The only thing Paula Crawford had done for
her new granddaughter was make that ridiculous orange jumper
Natasha was wearing now. Big black letters that were embroidered
across the front boldly announced:
BABY
NATASHA
It arrived in the mail two weeks after the
baby was born, after she finally had a name. Giving the child a
name had been such a source of contention between Neal and Annie
that “Jane Crawford-Becker” had simply been entered on the birth
certificate. They both agreed to officially change it later.
Because Annie was so sure her child would be “special,” she
insisted on a unique name. Boy, had the names ever been unique! Her
first choice was Amethyst, followed by Raziel and Zealanda.
Neal couldn’t stand any of them. Having
suffered his way through grade school with the quintessentially
nerdish “Rupert” as his middle name, he was against choosing
anything that might cause his baby daughter any distress. He was in
favor of a simple name, like Susan or Diane or, yes—even Jane.
But Annie wouldn’t hear of it, not for her
baby.
Finally, one evening Neal had a brilliant
idea.
“Let’s let our little daughter choose her
own name,” he’d suggested. They were sitting in the living room on
the plastic covered couch. Annie was holding the baby in her
arms.
Neal’s young wife frowned at him. “You want
to run that by me again?”
“I’m serious.” He jumped up and retrieved
the tome of baby names that Annie had nearly worn out during the
past six months, ever since she’d found out the baby was a
girl.
“Give her to me—you take the book.”
Annie looked at him like he was nuts, but
carefully handed Neal the infant.
“Now start flipping back and forth through
the girls’ names. The first time she makes any type of sound, stop
on that page.”
Annie immediately understood and began
steadily flipping through the book. The baby kicked its feet and
turned its little head, almost as if she understood what they were
doing, too. But a long time passed—she was completely silent.
“Ga!” she said suddenly.
Annie stopped flipping. “She’s in the
N’s.”
Neal leaned forward, looking. “Now start
running your finger up and down the names, very smoothly, back and
forth, back and forth. Yeah. Next sound she makes, that’s her name.
Agreed?”
Annie looked skeptical. “Well...maybe...”
She kept running her finger up and down the two open pages, looking
at her little girl. “What’s your name, tweety? Can you pick your
name for Mommy and Daddy?”
Neal leaned forward, looking at the names.
“God, I hope she doesn’t choose Nefertitti.” The book listed every
name known to mankind, and a lot that sounded completely made
up.
“Geeh!” the baby finally said.
Neal leaned forward to see where Annie’s
finger had stopped.
“Natasha!” they both said together.
“Hey, I kind of like that,” Neal said.
Annie frowned again, but he could tell she
wasn’t completely against it. “Natasha... that’s not bad, I guess.
But it sounds too Russian, don’t you think?”
“No. Lots of Americans are named Natasha
these days. It’s a little exotic, but not too over-the-top.”
Annie took the baby back and peered closely
at her tiny face. “Are you Natasha?”
“Gah!” Natasha said, drool running out of
the side of her mouth.
That last “gah” sealed it.
A week later, they’d received the jumper
that Annie’s mother had supposedly made for her granddaughter. He
never had liked the ugly thing. Neal soon discovered a tiny a MADE
IN CHINA tag on the inside. All the lazy woman had done was
embroider Natasha’s name across the front. And she probably hadn’t
even done that herself.
In any case, whenever the baby was wearing
the hideous garment, he thought she looked ridiculous. She reminded
Neal of a mean little wrestler, the wild-and-crazy types you saw on
the Saturday morning TV programs.
Ladies and gentlemen, in this corner,
hailing from Atlanta Georgia, and weighing in at a solid fifteen
pounds, our defending
‘enfant terrible’
...BABY
NATASHA!
Neal’s thoughts came back to the
present...he realized he’d just been sitting in the hospital
parking lot for about five minutes, staring out the windows at
nothing...the defroster had cleared the fog off the glass. It must
have been the pain killers. He finally got the nerve to glance over
at Natasha.
Asleep in the baby seat, with her arms
outstretched, her head down, the flabby baby-flesh under her chin
bunching together like a fat old man’s...she actually
looked
like a little wrestler, exhausted, in between rounds, waiting for
her manager to douse her with water.
Neal shook his head and downed a few more
pain killers, popping them into his mouth like gum drops. He backed
the car out of the parking space and began to make his way out of
the lot, to the street. He felt another strong urge to glance at
Natasha, but fought it.
Concentrate, Neal, concentrate
.
She’s just a little harmless, sleeping baby. Why are you so
afraid her?
Neal gave a reassuring nod to himself,
feeling a little better. He decided to go over all the supplies he
would need. Yes, that was a good idea—make a mental list of things
he would need in order to take care of Natasha. That would keep his
mind occupied.
1. Formula.
That was the most important thing. Annie had
plenty of it at home—she had bought a half-dozen cans the day
before, so that wasn’t a problem.
2. Diapers.
He was sure there were some diapers around
the apartment, too, though Natasha seemed to go through them at the
same rate that he went through the pages of the classifieds. But he
would manage.
What else did Natasha need?
Neal struggled to think, desperately trying
to concentrate...to avoid looking at the baby...
She was looking at him, though.
He could feel it.
No, it’s your imagination, Neal. She’s
asleep. Concentrate, buddy, concentrate. Don’t lose your grip on
reality again!
Neal underwent this internal struggle for
the next few minutes, until he approached Roswell Road. He managed
to keep himself under control. He
could
not and
would
not look at Natasha.
She’s looking at me
, he thought, as
he turned the corner.
I know she’s looking at me...
Neal slowly turned his head just a little
bit to the right, his gaze focusing first on the radio...then the
glove compartment... the passenger door handle...
She’s looking at you, Neal. She’s
watching
you...
When Neal could stand it no longer and
finally looked over at her face, he jumped so violently that the
car swerved to the left.
Natasha was looking at him, all right! Her
eyes were open wide, her fuzzy little head turned in his direction,
both her eyes blacker than the drizzly night. But that wasn’t what
frightened him so much.
Her toothless, infantile mouth was twisted
into a grin.
Neal tried to get the car under control, but
it had already started skidding.
Then, to Neal’s absolute horror, Natasha
spoke.
“Feeeeeeed meeeeeee!” she cried, in a
high-pitched, scratchy voice. It sounded almost like that of an
elderly woman, like Grammy Snell.
Neal screamed.
A second later, a horn was blaring in his
ears. He realized that he was about to smash into a car that was in
the left-hand lane.
Neal swerved his own car over to the right.
This caused the back end to begin fishtailing, first to the left,
then back around to the right...
“Feeeeeed meeeee, Neeeeeal! Feeeeeed
meeeee!”
Hearing his name come out of the tiny,
hideous mouth pushed Neal completely over the edge. He closed his
eyes, no longer concerned with whom or what his car collided.
After another wide fishtail, the car began
to skid sideways across the slick pavement. Neal was only dimly
aware of the blaring horns of other cars, headlights in his face,
and still more blaring horns, a SPEED LIMIT 40 sign that seemed to
sweep within inches of his left-hand rear view mirror, and—
The car shuddered to a halt.
It took Neal only a fraction of a second to
realize that it had somehow—miraculously—come to a stop on the
shoulder of the road, positioned at a right angle to the traffic,
without hitting anything.
He flung his door open and jumped out,
shrinking back from the car, staring at Natasha.
She was still staring at him, her black eyes
seeming even darker than before.
“Feeeeed meeee!” she shrieked.
“Holy mother of God!” Neal yelled.
Several cars slowed down almost to a stop,
the drivers staring at him as they rolled past. One shouted
something, but Neal was oblivious to all but the screaming monster
inside his own car. He was standing smack in the middle of the
right-hand lane of traffic. He didn’t know what to do.
“Get out of the road, you dumb-ass!”
somebody else yelled. “What the hell’s the matter with you?”
Neal turned around, only dimly aware of the
pain in his left foot, squinting into the headlights of the
oncoming cars, disoriented. He blinked once, then saw more lights.
And blue flashes coming from somewhere.
He staggered backwards, looking across the
street, then behind him, stumbling. He now saw that the blue
flashes were coming from a police car—it was making a U-turn.
“Uh-oh,” he muttered. The sight of the law
enforcement vehicle and its strobe lights had jolted him back to
reality. He quickly got his bearings and hobbled back over to the
driver’s door of his car.
The police cruiser rolled up and
stopped.
There were two officers inside—a white male,
at the wheel, and a black female in the passenger seat. The male
officer opened the door and got out.
He approached Neal with professional
caution, one hand resting on his gun.
“What’s going on here?”
Neal hesitated. “I lost control of my
car.”
“No kidding.” Keeping a safe distance from
Neal, the officer peered into the car with a flashlight. “Is that
your child?”
“Yes,” Neal said.
“Don’t you know children are supposed to be
strapped into the back seat?”
“Oh.” Neal vaguely remembered this rule.
Annie always strapped Natasha in the back seat when the three of
them went out, but Neal thought that was only because Annie sat in
the passenger seat. “I guess I forgot.”
The cop shook his head and shined the
flashlight on Natasha again. Working up his nerve, Neal looked
inside the car, too. But all he saw was a normal-looking five month
old baby girl, drooling and fidgeting in her car seat.