It all started one sunny
April morning, when Neal was
standing in the microscopic
kitchen of his and Annie’s
apartment, waiting for his
coffee water to boil. Only a
few minutes earlier, he had
picked up baby Natasha from
her crib and carried her into the
kitchen. If it had been up to
Neal, he would have been just
as happy to let the infant stay
where she was and continue to
sleep. Annie had an obsessive
fear of crib death and insisted
that Natasha be watched at all
times. She had gone across the
street to buy some formula at
the supermarket, but she did
not leave until she personally
witnessed Neal picking up the
baby.
He was standing near the
stove, the baby cradled in his
left arm, staring absently at the
little bubbles that start to swirl
and dance when water is close
to its boiling point.
Natasha made some small
movement that caught his
attention.
Neal glanced down at her
face.
Her dark brown,
reptilian-looking eyes opened
suddenly. In fact, they almost
snapped open—this was the
only way Neal could describe it
later.
The baby stared at Neal
with an eerie, almost angry
expression, one that he had not
witnessed before.
Then, without any hesitation whatsoever, she spoke.
It was as if she had been formulating the short but shocking sentence for some time and had merely been
waiting for exactly the right moment to deliver it—a moment in which her young, inexperienced father was still
half-asleep.
“I looooove youuuuuuu,” the infant said.
Neal was so taken aback that he almost lost his balance, as well as his grip on his daughter. Staring at her
little face with a combination of fear and disbelief, his first impulse was to get the hell away from her. He halfset and half-dropped the child on the counter, then backed up against the kitchen wall, shivering.
“My god,” he muttered in a tremulous whisper, Natasha’s words still whirling in his mind. This wasn’t
normal, it couldn’t be. She was only five months old...that was impossible. Neal wondered if he could have