by Mike Wells
“That baby is responsible,” Neal said firmly, though now he was beginning to question his grasp of reality. He groped for some sort of proof. “Look, how do you explain that blood on her forehead? You saw it. You wiped it away.”
Annie motioned to the wall. “There’s blood all over everything. Your foot slung it all over the room.” She sadly shook her head again. “I can’t believe I’m even having this conversation. I think after we take you to a regular hospital, we should take you to another kind of hosp—”
“Screw you,” Neal spat. He looked away.
Neither Neal or Annie spoke for a couple of minutes.
Annie finally broke the silence. “You have to wash out your foot.”
Neal didn’t respond. He stared at the makeshift bandage—the towel made his foot look like it had swollen up as big as a cantaloupe.
“You could get an infection,” Annie went on. “That trophy’s not clean, and—”
“Shut up, Annie,” Neal said flatly.
Annie was quiet only for a few seconds. “I’m sorry your hurt yourself, Neal, but I don’t see why you’re acting like such a baby about it.”
“I’m not acting like a baby.”
Natasha started to cry.
Annie gave another weary sigh and went over to the crib. She picked up Natasha and patted her on the back, rocking her from side to side. “There, there thweetie. Go back to sleep.”
Neal glared at both of them. Natasha continued to cry, her eyes squeezed shut. It wasn’t a hungry cry—even Neal had learned to recognize that particular sound. It was a cry of irritation, of disturbance. At that moment, Neal realized how much a baby—all babies—could affect what went on around them. Their crying almost always caused some kind of reaction in the environment, even if their mothers weren’t around.
As Natasha started to quiet down, Annie said, “Neal, you have to wash out your foot. Then I’ll take you to the emergency room.”
Neal watched her for a moment, then pushed himself up off the floor and limped into the bathroom.
* * *
“Well, Mr. Becker, I have some good news. No foreign matter appears to be left in the wound.”
The young doctor was holding some x-rays in his hand. He had just come back into the curtained-off section of the emergency room where Neal had been sitting the past two hours, mostly alone. The nurses had made Annie and the baby stay in the waiting room, which was just fine with Neal.
“Let’s have another look at it,” the doctor said. He gingerly took hold of Neal’s ankle and raised it, inspecting the hole again. The man was no more than thirty years old, probably an intern. But he seemed to know what he was doing.
“All things considered,” the doctor said, after a moment of peering and gentle squeezing, “it’s a pretty clean wound. No need for any stitches—you’ll just have to keep it bandaged up for a while.” He let Neal’s foot back down. “What do you do? Work or go to school?”
Neal hesitated. “I’m in the flower business.”
“Uh-huh. But what do you do, exactly?”
“Well...I’m the delivery manager. I schedule all the, you know, deliveries that have to be made.”
“Uh-huh,” the doctor said again. His facial expression told Neal that he knew it was a lie, but that he didn’t really care. “The reason I’m asking is that you’ll need to stay off your foot for a few days. There’s already considerable swelling, and I have a feeling it’ll get worse before it gets better.”
Neal only nodded, sorry that he had lied. But the thought of telling this young and successful doctor that he was nothing but a lowly flower delivery boy was too much for his ego to bear. Some day he would be a doctor—or something equally impressive—too.
“So, it won’t be a problem?” the doctor said.
Neal was so lost in his own thoughts he had forgotten the flow of the conversation. “What won’t be a problem?”
“Staying off your foot.”
A typical day of driving the Snell delivery van flashed through Neal’s mind—all the trips in and out of high rise apartment buildings, up and down stairs, across huge parking lots...
“It won’t be a problem,” Neal lied.
“Good.” The doctor began to explain how to clean the wound, change the bandage, and so on, but Neal only half-listened. He was worrying about how he would get through the next few days without the Snells discovering that he was practically disabled. If they knew, they wouldn’t let him drive the van—he would have to take time off without pay. If he tried to take sick time so soon after being hired, he would probably lose his job. Of course, losing the job at Snell’s wouldn’t be anything to cry over, but at least he got paid. And God knew he and Annie needed the money.
“Also,” the doctor said, after he had finished explaining the procedures, “I should warn you, there is a good chance you could develop an infection.”
“Infection?” Neal said, suddenly attentive again.
“Yes. Puncture wounds like this are particularly infection-prone. We don’t know what kind of foreign matter might have been on the end of that trophy you stepped on, bacteria or whatever. You’ve had a recent tetanus shot, so I’m not worried about that. But you could develop some other infection. If your foot really starts to swell or turns red or feels hot to the touch, you need to come back and we’ll put you on some antibiotics. Also, if you see any red streaks moving up your leg, you need to come back here immediately. That would indicate a very serious infection.”
Neal nodded, feeling a little uneasy, and looked down at his foot. It was already so swollen if felt like he had a golf ball sown into the bottom of it.
“Can’t you just give me some antibiotics right now, so an infection won’t even have a chance to get started?”
“No, I’m afraid not. I can give you something for the pain, though.” The doctor pulled a prescription pad out of his white jacket and started writing. “Take a couple of these every four hours, as long as you need them.”
“Thanks,” Neal said, taking the slip of paper. “But...”
“But what?”
In Neal’s mind, he could still clearly see the sharp, rusty metal that had punctured his foot. “I still think I better take some antibiotics right now, before any infection even has a chance to start. Don’t you?”
The young physician smiled. “Sorry, but that’s not how we practice medicine these days. We don’t give antibiotics until the symptoms of the infection appear and are diagnosed. Unless, of course, the patient is particularly susceptible to infection, for some reason.” He picked up Neal’s chart and looked it over. “You didn’t list anything of that nature.”
“No,” Neal said. “I’m healthy. As far as I know, anyway.” He remembered snide remark Annie had started to make about taking him to “another” kind of hospital.
“Good,” the doctor said. “Then I’m sure you won’t have a problem.”
CHAPTER 5
It was almost dawn when the fledgling Family Becker got home from the hospital. Annie went to sleep almost as soon as her head hit the pillow. Natasha had been asleep when Neal came out of the emergency room and (to his relief) had stayed that way ever since. Now, she was in her crib, and Neal could hear her breathing little, hoarse baby-breaths.
He lay there on his back until just before six a.m., his throbbing foot propped up on a pillow to minimize swelling, as the doctor had instructed. Neal thought it was all in vain, however. He was convinced that the wound was teeming with bacteria and it was only a matter of time before symptoms of infection appeared and he returned to the emergency room. A part of him told him that he was being a hypochondriac, but another part of him seemed certain about it.
As he lay there, a phrase the doctor had said popped into his mind:
We don’t know what kind of foreign matter may have been on the end of that trophy you stepped on...
Neal sat up in the bed and gazed at the tennis trophy. He could see it clearly now in the dawn light, sitting on the top
shelf of his trophy case, where he had put it before Annie had taken him to the hospital. Before they had left, he had glanced at the end of it to see if anything more had broken off, but he hadn’t really paid that much attention to its cleanliness.
Neal quietly got up and, with considerable difficulty, limped across the room to the trophy case. When he passed the crib, he fought the urge to look at Natasha, afraid he would see those black eyes again. But he could not help himself.
He was relieved to see that she was still fast asleep, her eyes shut, but her tiny hands clenched to her chest, in the fetal position. Just a little, harmless baby. It was hard to believe that he—a grown, 21 year old man— was actually afraid of her.
Careful not to make a sound, Neal picked up the tennis trophy and limped into the kitchen, using various pieces of the rental furniture to support himself. His left shoulder ached almost as much as his foot—every time he moved his left arm, he winced. Neal hadn’t even mentioned this to anyone at the hospital. But he was certain it was nothing but a bad bruise.
His foot, however, was another matter.
When he finally reached the kitchen, he went over to the sink and turned on the florescent light fixture mounted directly above it. He held the trophy under the bright white light and examined the broken tennis shaft very closely. It was caked with dried blood now, so it was hard to tell how clean it was before it had ripped through the bottom of his foot.
He scraped off a little bit of the blood. It was a deep maroon color and chipped off the metal in tiny little chunks. Neal turned the trophy one way, then another, to try and get a better look at it. As he did this, he noticed something new. The racket shaft was hollow—this he had noticed before, when he had tried to glue it back together. But now, something was plugging up the end. Some kind of “foreign matter.” He thought it was probably a piece of himself, a bit of tendon or gristle or maybe just skin. But it didn’t look like skin or gristle. It looked like dirt, like dried mud.
Neal frowned, his upper lip curling in repulsion, as he scraped at it with his fingernail. But this wouldn’t work. He needed something small and sharp to insert into the hole in the shaft...
He opened the cupboard and retrieved a toothpick from a little cardboard box, then held the trophy under the light again and scraped some of the brown stuff out.
That was when he noticed the smell.
Neal held the toothpick up to his nose. His upper lip curling again, he inhaled. He recoiled, staring at the little brown-smeared sliver of wood.
It was shit.
And not just any shit.
It was baby shit.
Neal dropped the toothpick in the sink, his throat bone-dry. He reeled for a moment, trying to convince himself that it might have just been blood or something else, but there was no question about it. He knew that odor very well, that almost-sweet fragrance a baby’s stool will emit for the first few months, when the child is consuming almost nothing but milk. Annie had (not surprisingly) made a special trip to the pediatrician about it, afraid that the smell signaled some kind of disorder.
“What are you doing?” Annie said, from behind him.
Neal was so shocked he dropped the trophy into the stainless-steel sink. When the heavy object made contact with the metal, it created a reverberating boom! that was so loud it made Neal’s ears ring.
Natasha started crying—she was cradled in Annie’s arms.
“I was just trying to find a way to fix...” Neal’s voice faded before he had finished his lie. He stared at the crying baby, fear rising in him like a rudely awakened animal. His daughter, that little...creature...wanted him hurt. Maybe even dead.
He remembered a documentary he had seen on TV about some natives in Africa who smeared human feces on the end of their spears and arrows to ensure that their victims—in this case, enemy tribes—developed serious infections if they were not mortally wounded. Natasha had undoubtedly employed the same principle here.
“What’s the matter with you?” Annie said. She was still staring at him, her eyes filled with fear. “You look...strange.”
Neal realized that he probably looked insane, his back pressed against the sink, staring at his baby daughter as if she were the Antichrist. But he couldn’t help himself.
He was terrified.
Neal pointed a shaking finger at Natasha. “That...that thing is trying to kill me!”
“What?” Annie said. She let out a short laugh, but then her eyes became wide with fear. She took a step backwards, through the doorway, and held the baby defensively. “You’re losing your mind.”
“Oh, am I?” Neal picked up the trophy and thrust it towards her. “She smeared her shit all over the end of this thing to make sure I got an infection!”
Annie’s eyes became even wider.
“Smell it, if you don’t believe me! Smell it, Annie!”
She stared at Neal for a second, then turned and carried Natasha into the bedroom, and shut the door. Neal heard the lock click.
She was afraid of him…
Neal stumbled over to the dinette table and fell into one of the chairs. “Holy Christ,” he said in a hush. “What am I doing? What am I thinking?” Suddenly, he felt cold and started shivering. He really was losing his grip on reality.
She’s your daughter Neal, your own flesh and blood. You’re imagining this whole thing because you feel so guilty about wanting her aborted. You have a mental complex that’s so huge and twisted you actually believe Natasha wants to get even with you, wants to make you pay for almost ending her embryonic life and keeping her out of this world.
Annie’s absolutely right. You need to see a shrink, buddy. And fast.
Neal swallowed hard. He wasn’t sure of which he was more afraid—going stir crazy or that his baby daughter was actually trying to do him in.
He remained slumped in his chair for another half hour, as the early-morning light gradually filled the room. He could hear Natasha’s muffled crying for a few minutes, but then the sound stopped in an abrupt way, accompanied by some coughing, which told Neal that Annie was nursing her. Finally, the alarm clock went off. He decided he had no choice but to try and pull himself together and get ready for work.
* * *
By noon that day, Neal was certain that he had taken a wrong turn somewhere on the Interstate. “TRAFFIC BOUND FOR HELL—EXIT ONLY,” the sign must have said.
He sat outside a hi-rise office building in Sandy Springs, trying to work up enough courage to struggle his way out of the van and carry the order of roses he was supposed to deliver into the lobby. He had stopped at a drugstore on his way to work and picked up his pain killers, but they didn’t seem to help much. He had taken six already, two more than he should have, but they only dulled the throbbing in his foot. The pills also seemed to have the unpleasant side-effect of making him nauseous. And the doctor had been right about the swelling getting worse before it got better. Now, the skin on the sole of his foot was stretched so tightly it felt like the whole appendage was about to burst. The only positive thing was that his shoulder was staring to feel better—at least the pain killers seemed to work on that part of his body.
He had worn a pair of old, faded sneakers to work, the only shoes that were halfway bearable to wear under the circumstances. This had allowed him to hide his injury from the Snells, though just barely.
Neal glanced at the office building again, dreading the seemingly vast distance that separated him from the lobby. He started to open the door, then shut it again. No, he had to rest for another couple of minutes. He decided to take another look at his foot.
He grunted and carefully removed his right sneaker, then slipped off his sock. The top of his foot looked a bit red to him, particularly around the bandage. It also felt “hot to the touch,” as the doctor had said.
He pulled up the bottom of his pants and inspected his ankle and calf, but he didn’t see any red streaks. Yet, his instincts told him that his foot was well into the process of becoming infected. But
how could he know for sure? It seemed to him that it might be hot and red just from walking around on it all morning. Plus, didn’t it take longer to get an infection?
Neal wished he had asked the doctor how long it would take for the symptoms to appear. Then again, he would have sounded like a hypochondriac. But hadn’t the doctor said that it was “likely” that an infection would develop? Well, no, he didn’t say “likely.” He said there was a “chance” that an infection could devel—
“Hey, pal,” somebody said, tapping on his window.
It was a heavyset black man with a mustache. A security guard.
Neal rolled down the window.
“You’re gonna have to move. This is a fire zone. No parking or standing.”
“I have to make a delivery.” Neal realized that the man was staring at his foot, which he had propped up on the lower part of the dashboard. He quickly moved it down to the gas pedal.
“What happened?” the guard asked.
“Nothing,” Neal said. “Just sprained my foot a little bit yesterday. Playing tennis.”
“Looks pretty bad.”
Neal just shrugged. He hoped the guy would just leave him alone.
“If you’re gonna make a delivery,” the guard said, “then get on with it. The police will give you a ticket if they see you parked here.”
Neal nodded.
The guard eyed Neal for another couple of seconds, then walked off.
Neal watched him, wondering how the truth—or what he perceived to be the truth—would have sounded.
What happened to your foot?
Oh, my five-month old daughter set a trap for me and screwed me up pretty good.
A trap? What the hell are you talking about?
Well, she’s pissed off because I almost made my wife abort her, and now she’s trying to get even. She’s pretty advanced, too, for a five-month old kid. She can already talk, move things around the room. And she’s shrewd as hell. Left a broken tennis trophy of mine out in the middle of the floor, so I’d step on it when I got up to go to the bathroom. Smeared her own feces all over it, too, just to make sure an infection would develop.