Free Baby Talk by Mike Wells

planning a trip to Atlanta and hadn’t even
called. But after their big fight and what Annie had told her (“Get
the hell out of my life and stay out!” were Annie’s exact words),
what did she expect?
    “I don’t want to mess up your trip...” Annie
said, hoping her mother might volunteer to cancel it and stay
home.
    “I really can’t back out now, honey. Not
this late. Doug went to a lot of trouble to get the tickets.”
    “Well,” Annie said, “I guess I’ll have to
find someplace else to stay, if things get much worse.”
    There was a long silence. “Annie, you can
come home anytime you want, you know that.”
    Annie hesitated. The last thing she wanted
to do was get underneath her mother’s thumb again. That was the
reason she had moved away from Chattanooga in the first place. And
she certainly didn’t want to look like a failure in her mother’s
eyes—when she married Neal, Paula had predicted that the marriage
wouldn’t last a month, that Annie would come running home to
Chattanooga with her tail between her legs.
    Annie said, “I just might need to come home
for a couple of days, you know, until this gets straightened
out.”
    “A couple of days, whatever you want. Just
stay as long as you need to.”
    Annie felt a little better. “Are you
sure?”
    “Of course I’m sure. You’re my daughter,
honey. You can always come home whenever you need to.” She paused,
then added. “Your room is just like you left it.”
    Annie felt tears coming. “Thanks,
Momma.”
    “Do you still have your key?”
    Annie wiped her eyes, composing herself.
“Yeah, I still have it. When will you and Doug be back?”
    “Sunday night, or Monday. When are you
coming?”
    “I’m not sure. I was thinking about coming
tonight.”
    “I’ll call you and check on you, then.”
    “You don’t have to do that, Momma. I’ll be
fine.”
    After they hung up, Annie wasted no time in
preparing to leave. Telling her mother she was “thinking” of going
to Chattanooga tonight was just to save herself some face—she had
no intention of being within a 100 mile radius of Atlanta when Neal
got home.
     
     

C HAPTER 6
     
    After Neal made his last afternoon delivery,
he drove the empty van back to the flower shop, as he always did.
He wished he could have taken the van home and driven it back to
the shop the next morning, but of course that was out of the
question. There was absolutely no way he would be able to hide his
condition from the Snell’s now. His was no longer able to walk
without an obvious limp, and every now and then he had severe bouts
of chills and shook from head to toe. At the very least, he would
have to go inside the shop and give Grammy the delivery receipts
and the keys to the van. And sometimes they made him make another
last-minute delivery or two, if the runs weren’t too far away.
    Neal agonized over all this as he drove
towards the shop, trying to think of some solution. But of course,
there was none.
    However, it turned out that all his worrying
was for naught.
    When he limped back into the flower shop,
the look on both Grammy’s and Mildred’s faces told him that the jig
was up.
    “Daddy!” Grammy squealed over her shoulder.
“Neal’s back!”
    Neal’s heart sank. “Daddy” was what all the
Snells called the old man, even Grammy, his mother. The two old
women looked back down at their work, pretending to be absorbed in
it, the way people do when they’re about to witness something
deliciously unpleasant.
    Neal heard old man Snell’s heavy footsteps
coming down the hallway, from the main office. He sauntered into
the open area where Grammy and Mildred worked. His pale blue eyes
looked Neal up and down. Then, he simply cocked his head towards
his office.
    “Uh-oh,” Neal muttered under his breath. He
followed the old man down the hallway, no longer bothering to try
and hide his limp. When they entered the office, Snell motioned to
a decrepit black Naugahide chair opposite his desk,