Bait

I committed murder last night when I shoved the writhing mouse into the porcelain bowl and held it there until it stilled.

I’m usually kind to animals and small children, but this invader broke into my home, raided my cupboard, gnawed into every sweet thing I owned, including a jumbo bag of chocolate chips, a new package of Oreos and then left a trail of tiny turds.

“He’s so cute,” Samantha squealed, the first afternoon we saw him rooted on the kitchen tile floor before a cookie crumb and I said he was a field mouse, lost to his family and belonged outside. “Oh,” said Samantha, wide-eyed and trusting, still young enough to believe her mother can do no wrong, even though I began laying live-catch traps each night like land mines, only to find each morning the peanut bait gone and the trap empty.

Then the intruder breached a new box of Raisin Bran, tearing through the cardboard and plastic, ruining my favorite breakfast cereal, and this new violation emboldened me to go all in and buy glue traps.

When a squeak split the quiet with a high, sharp, wail, I went to make it stop, found tiny paws fixed to the cardboard, like bugs to flypaper, took him to the toilet, watched him drown, eye to eye, then told Samantha in the morning, “He must have gone home to his family,” but she had already forgotten the mouse and her eyes had flitted to the Monarch butterflies in the yard, darting unaware in haphazard paths, like something briefly spared.