The Mouse by Jacqueline D'Acre

In this short story of a dysfunctional marriage, strange creatures hang around. What does it all mean?

The Mouse

A Short Story

She couldn’t sleep. Easing from the bed, she groped for the oversize T-shirt she used for a robe, shimmied it over her head, and tiptoed from the dark bedroom. Her husband’s body was curled around a pillow, his smooth back to her side of the bed.

             Outside light, through the mini-blinds covering the living room window, made pale stripes across the carpet and the mound of her husband’s luggage. He’d just returned from Orlando, his sixth business trip of the year and it was only March. There was rustling and—her hands flew to her cheeks—a mouse! It had to be a mouse!—scampered from the luggage and disappeared into the kitchen. She breathed a careful scream, not to wake Ed. A mouse! Mice and snakes. They gave her the skunners.

             She wanted a cup of chamomile tea. But the mouse was somewhere in her kitchen. Her feet were bare, it could run across her toes. She ran back to the bedroom and stopped, debating. Ed would be angry if she woke him. But wasn’t this was an emergency? Bracing for his annoyance, she whispered, “Ed. Ed. You’ve got to wake up!”

             “Wuh?”

            “Ed! There’s a mouse in the house.”

             He half sat up. “A mouse? Are you sure?”

            “Yes. I saw it. It was in your luggage—”

            “—My luggage?” He flung the covers from his naked body and clicked on his bedside lamp. “In my luggage?!” His legs swung over the side of the bed and he stared at the floor, then up at her.

            She wondered if somehow he’d imported the mouse?

            “Maybe it’s a little souvenir from Disneyworld. Hitched a ride with you to New Orleans.”

             He laughed, but uncertainly. She guessed, like her he was wondering: could a mouse really have gotten in his luggage? Shuddering, her entire body quivered.

             “I’m scared to go into the kitchen.”

             “Well, you’ll have to tell Cecil. He’ll get the exterminator.”

             Dierdre noticed she stood one foot on top of the other, shoulders hunched, fingertips laced before her bosom, her body in a posture of forward motion, even though she stood still.

             “Mice give me the willies,” she said. “I’m scared to go into the kitchen.”

            He grinned, and her shoulders sagged with relief. He thought she was cute, in her fear of mice. He stood.

             “I’ll take a look.”

            Naked, he strode before her, turning on first the hall light, then a living room lamp, then through the dining area that was his office. At the threshold of the kitchen he paused, then flicked on the light. She became aware again of her bare feet and stood about six paces behind him, body leaning in a peering posture, although it was impossible for her to see into the kitchen. He turned.

             “Nothing. Are you sure you saw a mouse?’

             “Yes. It was about this long,” she indicated a length of four inches with a thumb and index finger, “it had a long tail, and it scampered, it bounded, away from your suitcases, into the kitchen.”

             “Hum.”

            She averted her eyes from his lean, smooth body. She’d driven nervous as usual, to the airport that afternoon to pick him up, wondering. Will he be happy to see me? She’d called his hotel room the night before as she had every night, and he hadn’t answered the phone. And she was supposed to call: she had a good reason to call; he was going to tell her what flight he’d be on. Each hour, she called. Four times. Fallen asleep. Then awakened, pillow cold and wet with sweat. Rising, (now wondering: had the mouse been there, too, in her living room?) and in the striped light the clock seemed to say eleven ten p.m. Midnight where he was. She had to call him again.

             “Hello?” A froggy voice.

             She’d woken him. He’d be mad.

             “Hi.”

             “Dierdre? What time is it?”

             “One here, midnight there.”

             A noise, he’d knocked something from his bedside table, she thought. 

            “No, it’s not! It’s four a.m. I have a very early breakfast meeting.”

            He was annoyed.

            “My God, Ed. I’m sorry. I must be crazy. I only glanced at the living room clock and I swear I thought it was only—”

             “—What do you want?”

             “Your arrival time, your flight—I tried to call you earlier—”

            “The phone…didn’t ring in the room.”

             “Not ring? But it’s rung every other night you’ve been gone—”

            “I don’t know.” His voice was sharp, then whiny. “It’s late, Dierdre.”

             “I’m sorry, you’re right.”

             “I’ve got to get some sleep. I’ll call you tomorrow. Tell you my flight.”

             “Okay. Sorry.”

             He hung up.

             Receiver in her hand she sat, hearing tone. A chill, as if a mouse had skittered over her bare toes, rippled through her body. It didn’t make sense—not ring in his room? Four times? If she’d dialed wrong once, sure...she could understand that, but she wouldn’t dial wrong four times...besides, and the chill tightened her skin, besides, each time, the hotel had answered, and she’d had to give his room number and his name, in order to be put through. When he didn’t answer by the fifth ring, she’d hung up, not bothering to leave a voice mail message.

             Not ring in the room? It almost sounded like he was in the room, that he’d heard the ringing, and from the fog of sleep gave her this strange denial.

            Not a good lie.

            When she’d picked him up at the airport he was distant. No hug, no kiss, his movements abrupt and aloof. They rode in silence from the New Orleans airport past the billboards for Maiden Voyage, and The Gentleman’s Club, although, she wondered what sort of ‘gentle man’ would think it was gentle or polite to have naked women serving them?

            When she returned from the grocery store that same evening, he was on the computer, and in one glance at the screen she saw a woman, nude, breasts bulging from the ropes that ran around them and her wrists and ankles.

             “Hi!” she cried with false brightness. She was working on acceptance. This was an opportunity not to judge. “Find anything interesting?”

            Before he could grunt an answer she knew there’s be no physical affection for her this night.

             In the kitchen, she whipped up a stir-fry, the yellow and red peppers had been on sale, only 99¢ a pound, and the wok looked like a photo in a cook book, with the julienned, toasted chicken breast, the slivers of sun-yellow and orange-red peppers.

            “Well, I’ve got to ask, “ she announced to the peppers. She walked into the small room, her office, where the on-line computer was. Saw a giant pink penis disappearing into an unidentifiable orifice.

             “So,” she tried to grin, “wanna get laid tonight?”

             He sighed and leaned back from the computer.

            “No. I’m tired and angry. Rough trip. Things didn’t go well with Steve. I’m still angry.”

            His tone was harsh, like a brick of parmesan pushed across a grater, and burdened. Poor ox, having to endure her inappropriate pleas for love. She stared at him. And knew. He’d heard the phone ringing in his room. Four times. Five rings each. Twenty thoughtfully spaced out, fearful rings, knowing it was her and whispering to the woman he’d ordered in, like a pizza, never mind that. It’s my wife. No, he wouldn’t say that much. Just “never mind that,” then, “Turn this way, let me—oooh!” She stopped the thought. It was inspiring too much pain.

             Whenever he’d had one of his episodes he always came home angry. She always tiptoed and scampered around him, like the mouse, solicitous, eager, clingy,

laughing too loud at his stories. Well. Not this time. She knew she couldn’t resist sleeping with him at some point, but this time she would not make the first move. If he wanted her, he’d have to ask her. He wasn’t shy about finding other women. He could damn well get over his shyness with her. But, was it shyness, or did he just not want to have sex with her? That their acts of love would have to be all her fault—since she was always the initiator, he the unwillingly seduced?

             Now, naked, he left the kitchen, and gave her back a light stroke in passing.

             “The mouse is gone. Call Cecil tomorrow.”

             Smiling, indulgent with her. She warmed to it.

            He went into the bedroom and closed the door behind him. Following, she found her bedroom slippers. Feet protected from mice, she timidly went into the kitchen, and ready to bolt at the slightest sound, put a chamomile teabag into a cup of water and waited while the microwave on top of the fridge heated it. Probably the mouse had gone beneath the fridge. It could emerge at any moment and run up her leg. She shivered, realizing her body was one big ‘eeeow’ feeling. Making herself stand there in her fear she waited until the microwave beeped. Made herself calmly add milk, a Sweet’n’Low. She even stirred quietly.

             In the living room she read her book, stretched out on the sofa, feet off the ground, and drank her tea. The mouse was probably as scared of her as she was of it. The book, a legal thriller about a homeless man, fell to her lap. Come to think of it, on many of her sleepless nights alone in this apartment, she’d heard inexplicable sounds. Small thumps, some small object knocked over, and she’d strain in bed to hear more. She knew it wasn’t her imagination when she heard these sounds. They reminded her of having a cat. A cat prowling around the apartment playfully, knocking things over in the night. Then she missed not having a pet. Since she’d moved back in with her husband a year ago, this was the longest time in her life she’d not had a pet. Since girlhood, and in the earlier twenty years of their marriage before they’d taken the three year hiatus, they’d always had a cat, a dog, or both. For awhile she’d been missing having a pet, especially with Ed gone so much. But the apartment rules forbade pets.  She smiled. In a peculiar way, with the mouse here now, and obviously it had been for some time, it had found her, like a stray. A pet.

            Oh she was seriously crazy.

            She put the book away and turned off the lamp. Then in the dark, feet safely scrunched up on the sofa, she listened like a cavewoman to the night. Silence. Taking a deep breath, she scurried to the bedroom and slid in next to her husband. She was

surprised he’d let go of the pillow and was facing her side of the bed. Under the covers she felt his arm slide over her hip and he fitted his still-young body to hers. As always, his hand missed touching her stomach. Her belly was a battleground, pillaged by three childbirths and a massive surgery. She was ashamed of her ugly belly, and he seemed to be too. And even though, after a few minutes her arm felt crushed, she didn’t move. It was so good to feel his body close to hers.

            In the morning she hesitated before walking into the kitchen to make coffee. Knocking on the door jamb, she whispered, “Mouse. Better hide, I’m coming in.”

            In an innocently empty kitchen, she made Edward’s coffee and her green tea, then went into her office and turned on the computer. While it booted up, she emptied the full ashtray of his butts, all upright like tiny erections, angrily stubbed out. Then she filed his document with all his passwords for his various paid porn websites, and opened the file on the book she was quarking—the software was Quark Express—titled Bondage. She was a graphic artist and most of her work came from a small book printer in Michigan. She designed the books: covers, and interiors, reading them carefully, then selecting a typestyle she felt best conveyed the mood of the book. She’d decided to set Bondage, a novel about a bail bondswoman, in Times New Roman with chapter headings in Matura. She hadn’t designed the cover yet, but the webpage of the woman she’d glimpsed wrapped in rope, flashed into her mind and she grinned. That’d get some attention!

            Sipping her tea she clicked on SpellCheck. Later, after Ed went out, she’d go on-line and see what email awaited her. When she heard her husband wake two hours later, she got up and performed her ritual of taking him his first cup of coffee. After living alone for three years, and now performing this task whenever he was home, she still felt a quiet joy. How wonderful to have someone in the house with her, to be able to serve them coffee. If, she smiled to herself, her belly wasn’t such a battleground, she’d serve it to him naked.

            “Thank you,” he said as she set it on his bedside table.

             Why didn’t she just pick up and leave, again? Why did she ‘put up with’ his shenanigans? Was she so desperate about never finding another man? And there was even risk...But Ed was careful. Even with her he used condoms. She’d thought it all through and had decided she was here to stay. No matter what. Some of the what’s had been astonishing to her, that this loyal and good man who’d been utterly faithful to her for twenty years had in the three years of their separation, become this…sex addict! Was he a sex addict? He said he was. That he just couldn’t help himself. No apology. This was just the way he was now. He was helpless.

            Well, she’d taken that vow: no matter what. And she knew she couldn’t control what he did when he was out of town. Or any other time.

             Leaning on the open door, she asked, “Will you speak to Cecil about the mouse?”

            Big sigh. “Why don’t you?”

            “Well, technically, it’s your apartment. And I’m on deadline with Bondage.”

             He had today and the rest of the week off before he had to fly to Denver, but the apartment manager Cecil was brusque with requests from the tenants.

             She went back to Bondage. Ed went to his office and began making calls to various clients, laughing and talking, and she wondered, since he could be so nice to all these near-strangers, why couldn’t he be nicer to me?

            As she performed tasks in the kitchen throughout the day, she thought about the mouse. They’d kill it. The pest man who came to spray for roaches every month, a man she shared little jokes with, would come. He’d set traps—she might have to see it’s scampering tiny body, limply dead, in a trap. Or, he’d poison it, it guilibly eating some cheese, then painfully spasming and dying. What harm had it done anyone? Apparently it’d been roaming the apartment for some months. It hadn’t hurt her. It was just trying to get by, like she was. But still, having it in the apartment, coming out at night, possibly touching her feet, or—getting up on the kitchen counters—searching for food. She shuddered. Ed got dressed and went out. He’d talk to Cecil and soon the exterminator, a wiry pleasant man, would arrive with his killing tools.

            That night when Ed came home, he hadn’t talked to Cecil.

            Chicken, she thought.

             “Didn’t you?” he asked.

             “Nope. I feel sorry for it.”

               He laughed. The indulgence was back.

             That night, he sat in the living room with her all evening and they watched bad TV together. She wondered a few times if she dare make a pass at him, but her new stanchness rose up. No. He’d have to make the first move.

            Later, when she couldn’t sleep and was making her chamomile tea, slippered feet so bravely close to the bottom of the fridge, she decided to feed the mouse. If it had something to eat, it wouldn’t be tempted to run into the living room, nor clamber, sniffing, over her counters. She shook some honey roasted Shredded Wheat’s on the floor near the fridge, then turned out the kitchen light and settled on the sofa with her thriller.

            But she was listening, intently. Not a sound. When her tea was finished and she wanted another cup, she got up, then stomped all the way to the kitchen, flicked on the light, knocked on the doorjamb, saying, “Mouse? I’m coming in. Better hide!” and peered around the door opening. Half the shredded wheat bits were gone, no mouse in sight.

            Well, at least he was polite. He got out of her way. He respected her.

            The next morning, the kitchen floor was pristine. Not even the tiniest shred of wheat on its shining surface. A neat mouse, too, she thought. Her husband was sloppy, his luggage would sit in the dining area, cum-office, until his next trip a week away. She’d have to walk around it every time she went into the kitchen. Sometimes, hurrying, she’d stub her toe on the wheeled carryall she’d bought him for Christmas.

            Ed surprised her again. He sat through a long night in the same room with her watching more bad TV. Not once did he spring up and retreat to her office, sign on to the Internet. After Ed retired, she left frozen green peas on a bed of oat bran flakes for the mouse.

             The next morning, the kitchen floor was immaculate.

             That night Ed sat through more TV with her and uncomfortably watched a Dateline story on a reformed pimp who’d lured teenagers into a life of prostitution. Ed had a thing, she knew, for young. But he watched, eyes wide. She swallowed her comments about his possible contribution to the enslavement of these teenagers. When the local news came on, she said, “Well. Now I feel sorry for the mouse.

            He grinned.

            “I’ve been feeding him.”

            “What?” He was half-laughing.

            “I figure it will keep him off the kitchen counters and out of the living room.”

            He laughed out loud.

            “I’ve also been wanting a pet, and since we sometimes do get our wishes, as in ‘Beware you get your wish,’ perhaps he’s my pet.”

            “I don’t know, Dier. Perhaps you should call Cecil.” Still tickled with her.

            “You call Cecil. I can’t bear to contract assassins for this poor little creature who’s just struggling to have a tiny life.”

            Grinning, Ed shook his head, and she knew he wouldn’t say anything to Cecil.

            And neither will I, she thought.

            The next day Ed was gone for most of the afternoon. She caught herself barefoot in front of the fridge. And looked down at her feet, not scared. She trusted her mouse, he wouldn’t run over her toes. She felt they had an arrangement. He’d politely vanish every time she came in the kitchen. He appreciated her feeding him. It must be such a relief to him to come out each night and see his little dish—well, it was only a plastic lid from a yogurt container, heaped with his balanced meals. Balanced, because she’d begun to be concerned about his nutrition. He’d loved the peas. But he’d had trouble with the baby carrot she’d left out the night before. It was the one thing that didn’t disappear in the night, although one end was gnawed. She just left it, and by the afternoon when she came into the kitchen at four o’clock for a Diet Coke, the carrot had disappeared.

            That night, she left him banana and a broken up slice of healthy 7-grain bread from Whole Food.

            The day before Ed’s next departure she fought a deep unease. She’d been reading her email and the new doctor she’d been to see a few months ago was still writing to her. Passionate emails, telling her how she had a glow about her. And she’d gone in with no makeup whatsoever, just that one visit, and he’d seen her battleground of a belly and she’d carefully watched his face when he’d first looked at it. His eyes were engaged, eager. He scanned her stretch marks with interest. Not a wisp of repugnance.

            “How many babies did you have?” he asked tenderly.

             “Three.” She smiled up at him.

             “Three babies.” It was as if he’d said, “How magnificent of you!”

             His fingers traced the long, still-purple scar that halved her abdomen like a peach, from belly-button to pubic bone.

             “And this surgery. Tell me about it.”

              She did and he listened, keen. Then, doctor-like, he palpated her soft stomach, asking if this hurt, did she feel this, and at the end he wiped one hand across the battleground, softly, like an absolution. Later, they’d talked and talked in his office and she’d ended up giving him her email address. And was startled he actually emailed her. Today was Ed’s last day. Every night for five nights he’d sat with her in the living room. He in his chair, she stretched on the sofa. She hadn’t made one move toward him, but now she felt desperate. If he didn’t make a move, if they didn’t make love, if he could go away after a whole week and not...well, maybe she’d meet the doctor. A man who touched her belly with reverence, not revulsion.

            All day at her computer, she fretted about her lack of love and about the mouse while designing the cover for Bondage. The design idea wouldn’t come. Instead, the extreme picture of the woman in ropes came. At three o’clock, Ed unexpectedly came home, and her heart knocked twice against her ribcage, like the hard knocks she now automatically made against the doorjamb before entering the kitchen. Ed came into her office and sat in her wing chair.

            “So. How are you?”

             “Good. But I’m worried about the mouse.”

             He grinned. “The mouse. I guess you didn’t talk to Cecil.”

            “I guess you didn’t talk to Cecil,” she grinned back.

            “Well Dier, I’ve got to get with it pretty soon, repack.”

            “I know.” She stared at the computer screen. “What time does your plane leave?” Please please Ed don’t go without loving on me, please I’m so scared I’ll just meet that damn doctor, and be so sorry I did.

             “Uh. Where’you at?” he asked, really looking at her.

             “I’d like an excuse to stop. Why?”

             “I just wondered.”

            Had he wanted to make to love to her each of those five nights? Ed’s cues were always so subtle, as if he was afraid she’d turn him down, yet she never did. But she’d been the one to pack her bags and angry as iron, stalk from their house. Sometimes he tiptoed round her. She rotated in her chair.

            “I’d like to stop. The right idea isn’t coming.”

             Leaning slightly forward she watched his eyes slide down to her lips. He leaned toward her and they kissed. Moments later he murmured, “Why don’t we go into the bedroom?”

            Relief flowed through her like ropes disintegrating.

            But in just ten minutes it was over. In the past they had loved for hours.

             She’d drive him to the airport the next morning. It wouldn’t be so bad being alone this time. The mouse would keep her company.

             When he returned, Ed, not an effusive person, was calm, the anger of the last trip absent. And in bed that first night he groped through the covers, found her, and gave her a squeeze before turning over and going to sleep.  Her new worry was her trip. She’d been scheduled for months to go to Calgary to visit her sister, now it was to happen next week. What about Mouse? Would Ed have the exterminator in, like a storm trooper, to attack it? Dare she ask Ed to feed Mouse? Mouse would surely miss his balanced meals.

            The next day Ed drove her to the airport not hiding his delight that he’d have the apartment all to himself for a week. She tried to enjoy his happiness. But wondered, if my being gone makes him so happy, why am I there in the first place? He’d invited her to move back in with him. Whenever she brought this up, he always said, “I’m comfortable with you here.”

          So why couldn’t they cut loose and really enjoy one another? It seemed a silly waste of both their time not to make love, well, why not every night? Why did it happen only about once a month?

He was to call her, the rate was better. At her sister’s, even while enjoying the reunion—they’d settled in front of her fireplace and were sipping a nice Merlot—she couldn’t help checking the grandfather clock in the shadows in her sister’s dining room. It chimed with each passing hour. Once the phone rang, but it was her sister’s boss. Dierdre had to take deep breaths and push pictures of Ed, with a rented young woman, possibly even in her bed, from her mind. After trips of hers, she'd smelled strange perfume on her pillow. Once she found green velvet thong panties pushed down at the bottom of the bed, between the sheets. He said they must have stuck there from when the sheets were washed and dried in the complex’s laundry room.

         The beeswax candle on the coffee table was guttering, the wine bottle long empty, when the phone rang again. Julie said “Hello,” grinned, and handed the phone to Dierdre.

             “Hi,” she said.

             “How was the trip?”

             “Fine. It’s great here. Julie lit the fireplace.”

             “Well, I watched TV. Ordered a pizza.” Only a pizza?

            “And, well, I’m about to hit the sack. Just wanted to make sure you got there okay.”

             Her hand tightened on the receiver, her palm hot and getting wet. Trying to grasp him, read between his sparse words.

             “Oh,” he said, his tone slightly goofy. “Just so you know, I called the pest man.” He laughed.

             “Dierdre. That damn mouse of yours isn’t a mouse. It's a rat! All this time, you’ve been feeding a rat!”

            She listened to his laughter. “How do you know?”

“Cecil trapped it.”

Her left hand on the phone wobbled, and so did her right, but it moved up and pressed Off.