Kim pantomimed holding a cup, raised the invisible vessel to where his lips were concealed behind the pacifier and tipped his head back. “Oh, I get it!” Mandy crowed. “Baby wants a bottle!” Kim shook his head, but Mandy, mimicking the gesture, overruled him. “Babies do not drink from cups, they only drink from a bottle,” she said.

Mandy grabbed a glass baby bottle and rubber nipple from the card table and rinsed them in the large laundry sink, then filled the bottle with cool tap water. She screwed the nipple in place and sat the bottle on the tray of Kim’s high chair. She looked at Kim sternly and said, “I’m going to loosen this gag so you can drink your bottle, Baby, but so help me, if you make so much as a squeak, the pacifier goes back in to stay and you get nothing to drink.”