Give a Mouse a Cookie and Everyone Is Happy

Photo by Marieke Tacken on Unsplash

“Hey, sweetheart! How are you? Good day?” Samantha dropped her tote on the paper-strewn kitchen table, eyed dirty dishes stacked in the sink, and kissed Bill’s head. “Where’s Janey?”

“Day sucked, but that’s job hunting….Haven’t seen Janey for…I don’t know…An hour? …She must be upstairs? With Aerin?” Bill flicked through pages, pausing at networking event notices.

Samantha kept her voice light and conversational, imagining laser eyes that could scorch the back of Bill’s block head. “Oh, me? How was my day? It was great, absolutely freaking unbelievable! Nothing’s better than begging fatuous young turks for an entry-level job…”

Anticipating sweatpants and a cold glass of wine, Samantha paused at Aerin’s room. Aloof, moody high school Aerin and three-year-old Janey nestled together and gazed at Aerin’s laptop.

Janey poked the screen. “Mouse! My Mouse!”

Aerin laughed and tickled Janey. “This is your little Mouse come to play with you!” She looked up at her mother and stiffened.

“Mom! How’d it go with Hammer Head?”

Samantha sat hard on the end of Aerin’s bed. Janey flung herself into Samantha’s lap.

“Hammerhead? If I’m lucky, he might give me a part-time gig.” Samantha closed her eyes, rubbed her face, rested her head on top of Janey’s curls.

“Mom. Everything is going to be okay. It might take awhile, but it will turn out great.” Aerin tapped her mother’s leg with an emphatic fuzzy sock.

Samantha grabbed Aerin’s foot and squeezed it. “Hey, I know these socks! They’re mine!”

Aerin grinned at the old game. “Nope. Mine!”

“We’re finding a …building a new house for Mouse!” Janey patted Samantha’s cheek until Samantha looked at her. “Mouse wants cookies!”

Aerin smiled at her little sister. “I have to build a mousetrap for AP American History — we’re doing the Transcendentalists and Ralph Waldo Emerson. Remember how he said ‘Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door’? We have to come up with a mousetrap that works and also reflects our position on the death penalty.”

Samantha groaned. “Don’t tell me. Honeycutt is behind this?”

“The one and only,” said Aerin. “But she’s not so bad this year. Anyway, Janey wants a mousetrap house that gives the mouse a cookie and keeps him safe until you set him free outside.”

Samantha smiled at Janey’s drawing of a big blue mouse, paged through Aerin’s proposed design and passionate defense of innocent life.

“Sweethearts!” Her eyes filled and her nose clogged up.

“We made Mommy cry!” Janey wriggled out of Samantha’s lap and jumped on the bed. “She’s happy and the hungry mouse gets cookies and we lives happy ever after!”

Samantha mopped her tears with a clean sock from Aerin’s drawer. Janey sang her mouse cookie song and bounced across the bed. When no one told her to calm down, she added spins.

Bill cleared his throat in the doorway.

“Hey, sounds like there’s a party going on in here!” He hovered awkwardly at the entrance to white lace and volleyballs.

Aerin looked down at her laptop and started typing fast and hard. Samantha dabbed under her eyes and sighed to stand up next to the bed. She stretched an arm toward jumping Janey.

“Come on, Snuggle Bunny, time for bath and stories.” Her voice was soft, low, ragged. She’d slip into sweatpants and then do the bath.

“Snuggle Bunny?” said Bill. “Don’t you mean Mouse? Our brilliant Mouse with her own cookie house?”

“Beautiful Mouse!” Janey leapt into her father’s arms.

Aerin smiled at her screen. Samantha’s eyes filled again.