Mrs. Z stood close to me. Put the thing in my stiff arms as slowly as she could. Talked about how to support the head and neck. Adjusted my fingers. “There,” she said, like she’d just finished frosting a cake. Proud of her work.

“Okay,” I said, with the Slinky in my arms.

“Now. Just give her a little bounce, bend your knees a bit,” said Mrs. Z.

I bounced. Deena was really enjoying this. I was afraid she was gonna take a picture and torture me with it for the rest of my life.

“All right,” said Mrs. Z. “I’m off to bed.”

“Hey!” I said, feeling duped. She left me there with the baby like a cheap magician’s trick.

When we heard Mrs. Z make it to the top of the stairs, Deena turned to me and said, “Go sit in the living room. I’m gonna make up a little bed for her. And I’ll get another bottle ready.”

“Fine,” I moaned. Still holding the bundle, I walked into the living room and sat in the chair Mrs. Z had been sitting in.

“We’ll see if we can get her to sleep,” said Deena, putting a pan of water on the stove. “And then you’ll tell me what the hell is going on.”

Deena disappeared to the basement, then came back up with an empty dresser drawer. She put it on the floor and wiped it out. Then she dashed upstairs. She came back with a bath towel and a blanket and sat on the floor, folding the blanket this way and that. Then she positioned them in the drawer, but she wasn’t happy. She took them out and put them in another way. She stood up and ran to the kitchen. Was she singing? She came back to the living room with a bottle, shook a drop onto her wrist, and handed it to me.

“Nuh-uh. You do it,” I said.

“All right,” she said, taking the baby, and we switched places. “But only so you can do the talking.”

“Okay,” I said as I paced the living room, back and forth.

“Just start at the beginning,” she said. I told Deena the whole story, all the stuff Cally had told me about college, the sperm donor, everything. “Fifty grand?” she said when I told her about the rich-ass lawyer and the contract, the credit card. Deena put the baby on her shoulder to make her burp. I could see the wheels turning in Deena’s head.

“So we broke up, and I went down to Missouri with Uncle Joey—”

“Yeah.”

“—because he had all that construction work. And I made like thirty-five grand, just between March and October.”

“Uh-huh.” Deena stood up and bounced with the baby.

“When I got back to town, I moved in with Danno over in St. Paul. You remember Danno?”