It was, to tell the truth, a very small and harmless field mouse.
Moving across the kitchen floor at whisker twitching speed, it sped by the sleeping dogs and darted under the stove with barely a sound. My mother turned just in time to see the last of its tail disappear and commenced to shrieking loud enough to wake the dead and all their relatives. There was a crash from the pantry as my startled grandmother rushed around the corner only to find my mother cowering in a corner, trembling hands at her throat, her face ashen with fear. Mouse! she wailed, Mouse! Mouse! Kill it!
Nana turned on me with a suspicious glare and I shook my head violently, laughing too hard to protest my innocence verbally. The dogs were in an uproar, pawing and scrabbling at the stove, trying to poke their noses underneath and howling fiercely. There was the sound of footsteps slamming down the stairs and my daddy appeared in the doorway of the dining room, shirtless and lathered in shaving cream. Mouse! my mother continued to scream, Mouse! Mouse! Kill it! She grabbed a broom off the wall and held it out on front of her as if it might be endowed with supernatural powers and would protect her against this deadly menace. It seemed to reassure her, her screams turned to panicky whispers - Mouse! she repeated but less breathless, less terrified, Mouse! Her eyes locked on the stove and the dogs, her grip on the broom tightened, she began to cry and inch her way toward the door. She reached it and pushed through backwards, her death grip on the broom never wavering. Mouse, mouse, mouse, I could her chanting as if it were a magic spell, Mouse in the house, kill it, kill it, kill it. As Nana and my daddy and I watched, slack jawed with surprise, the chant turned to a precise dance and the actual mouse was nearly forgotten. My mother, in pink fuzzy slippers and a shapeless housedress, began to two step and sing on the wet grass - mouse, mouse, I could hear plainly, kill it, kill it and then a THUD! as she smacked the broom against the ground. Mouse, mouse, kill it, kill it, THUD! Mouse, mouse, kill it, kill it, THUD!
Taken leave of her senses, she has, my grandmother remarked mildly, as if she saw such a sight every day, Guy, you might want to stop her before she breaks my broom. My daddy nodded and slipped out the door, gently retrieved her and led her back inside. She was to stay in her room for the next three days, refusing to come out until she was satisfied the mouse was dead and, to my grandmother's dismay, refusing to surrender the broom. When, on the fourth day, the mouse was still unapprehended, my daddy took bold and decisive action, paying Aunt Lizzie next door $5 for the next dead mouse her cats presented her with. On the fifth day, he took my mother her proof - a tiny, mangled and bloodied mouse corpse wrapped in an old dishtowel. He lied effortlessly, so convincingly that had I not been part of the small conspiracy, even I would've believed him. The actual mouse was never captured, Likely died of fright, Nana said with small smile and began sweeping the kitchen.
It's always wrong to tell a lie, my daddy was to tell me, but sometimes, and here he paused to repeat himself for emphasis, only sometimes and only under the most dire of circumstances, a very small deception can be a very great kindness.
My grandmother took a more jaundiced view of the incident, Well, she puts on a good show, I'll give her that. Might ought to consider a career on the stage, if you ask me.
My stricken mother, whether exhausted from genuine terror or simply depleted from the effort of her
performance, recovered her wits and saw no more mice all that summer. I was often tempted to tell her the truth but I honored my secret. It was to be an important lesson in human frailty, kindness,
and the stark vision of a mind in meltdown and in the grand scheme of things, I eventually came to understand, whether it had been real or conjured mattered not at all.
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