Mouse Socks

One dollar for a pair of socks. That’s what the lady in the plastic vest with the blue and yellow fringe told Daisy’s mother. “Really?” her mother replied. “Huh.” She cocked her head and thought for a minute, then leaned over and whispered in Daisy’s ear with the gravity of one spy to another. “You can pick out any pair you want, Sweet Pea, no questions asked.”

No questions asked, that was the clincher for Daisy. Had she heard right? Usually, her mom had all kinds of questions challenging anything Daisy wanted to buy on their once-a-month sojourn to the big box store when her mama got paid.

Don’t you think that t-shirt will swallow you? Isn’t that lunchbox too girly for a sporty girl like you? Wouldn’t you rather have a juicy pear than that nasty bag of Cheese Doodles? On and on with the twenty questions, every one of them aimed at undermining what Daisy wanted, inching her closer and closer toward what her mother insisted was cheaper or more practical or healthier, what would last and what was a piece of junk that would tear apart at the tiniest pressure. It was an endless loop that Daisy and her mother repeated every shopping trip like two player pianos stuck on a single refrain. Daisy had gotten used to it. This was her life.

But today, today was different. No questions asked, her mother had said, and then stepped back and put both hands in the air like it was a stick-up and Daisy was the robber.  Uh-oh. What’s wrong? Daisy thought.

“I promise, whatever pair you want, Champ. It’s your decision,” her mother repeated.

Daisy grinned even though she knew better. Is this some kind of trick? she thought. She didn’t want to be disappointed again. That always felt like a punch in the belly, it hurt so much.

But, any pair you want, her mother had said. OK, if this was a trick, so be it. She would play along.

Daisy stepped onto the rung under the display table and dug her hands deep into the mountain of socks--long ones that went up to your knees, short ones, skinny ones, thick ones. Socks galore, all soft and velvety like kittens, each with its own cuter-than-cute animal or dancing polka dots or favorite party food woven into the design.

It was mesmerizing.

How could she possibly choose? How does a girl even make a choice? What does that feel like? The mounds of socks loomed larger and more ominous. I need to pick something small, she thought. Something little and harmless and cute. She tossed aside the dinosaurs, the galaxies far, far away, the lions and tigers and bears.

“Oh my,” she muttered.

Even the whales and porpoises were too daunting. And the pizza and ice cream cone and candy cane socks were just too impossible to consider.

And then, at the bottom of the tallest stack of socks she found them.

Baby mice socks, with their tiny whiskers, rosy noses, soft white tummies, and giant gray ears with pink insides. So cute. Adorable even. Cuter even than Minnie Mouse with her big red shoes and polka dot bow. These are like her babies, Daisy thought, Minnie Mouse and Mickey Mouse’s little mouse babies. Daisy could almost hear them squeaking.

“I want this pair, Mommy,” she said, holding the snuggly baby mice socks up to her mother who stood a few feet away shaking her enormous handbag and listening for the sound of change.

“Really?” her mother said. “You want mice?”

“But you said any pair I wanted,” Daisy said. She was going to hold her ground. No questions asked.

“All right, Pumpkin,” her mother sighed. “You win. You want mice crawling up your ankles. You can have them. Just don’t let them loose in the kitchen.”

So she got them. The perfect pink-nosed mousies. Mandy and Matilda she would call them. They were sisters. Little sisters. Her little sisters, like the ones she wanted but never got. “Sorry, Buttercup,” her mother had said when Daisy had begged her for a little sister after their neighbors brought home twin baby girls when her father was still alive. “We can’t afford any more kiddos in this house.”

No more kiddos. So, it was her fault she couldn’t have a baby sister, much less two little sisters, like the big sister next door. Daisy held her mouse socks up and gave them each a kiss. She couldn’t let disappointment creep back into her heart.

As soon as they got home, Daisy pulled off her sneakers and slipped into her snuggly mouse socks and danced around the kitchen while her mother unloaded the shopping bags. Jumbo boxes of oatmeal. Sacks of onions with their flaky skins peeling and crumbling onto the floor that Daisy liked to toss into the breeze from the back porch. More bags of beans and rice and different colored lentils that her mother poured into giant empty pickle jars and set on top of the cabinets. No sweet treats. No juice boxes. No boxes of anything with secret toys hidden inside.

Like always.

But Daisy didn’t care. Today, she had Mandy and Matilda Mouse. They were mighty, her little mice. Mighty and mischievous, she decided, after her first week with them. Mischievous like the cartoon mice she watched on Saturday morning, with her feet propped up on pillows in front of the TV so Mandy and Matilda could see their cousin mice on TV. They were getting braver, Mandy and Matilda, Daisy realized, wrapping themselves around her ankles, nibbling at her toes, squeaking when she walked, though only she could hear them. They called to her in mouse-ese. Cute little squeals that sputtered and screeched like her mother’s car early in the morning, only quieter.

“I need a new fan belt,” Daisy’s mother grumbled every morning, rain or shine, but every morning still came the squeals. Daisy wondered if the fan belt was lonely. Was it crying? Or maybe it was just embarrassed, living inside what her mother called “this rattle trap monstrosity that’s all we can afford, Chipmunk.”

Her mother had a lot of funny names for her, but Daisy didn’t mind. Chipmunk was one of her favorites. Doodle Noodle, was kinda cute too, but she really didn’t like Skinny Bean. It reminded her of all the beans they ate and how sometimes she really just wanted pizza.

Daisy’s mother’s car let out one more screech that afternoon as they backed out of the parking lot at Daisy’s school. It was a shorter screech, more like a shout and Daisy suddenly worried that maybe the screech wasn’t an embarrassed fan belt, but instead was a giant mama mouse that lived inside her mother’s car. Oh no, maybe it was Mandy and Matilda’s mother, come to take them home. She couldn’t let that happen. They were her sisters now. But what about their mama mouse? Maybe her sister mice were missing their mama? She would miss her mama even if her mother never let her get what she wanted. Except her mice socks that one time.

Daisy bent and tugged and tugged at her pant legs, trying to get them up above her socks. Her ankles felt like the mice were trying to crawl up her legs. Maybe they heard their mama calling. Daisy needed to make sure that Mandy and Matilda could hear the squeal inside Daisy’s mother’s car to know if it really was their mouse mama calling to them. She pulled her pant legs up to her knees.

“What is wrong with you, Mousey Mouse Girl?” her mother asked, glancing at Daisy in the back seat. “Are your mousitos tickling you again? You really need to let me wash those socks, Sweetie. How about we give them a bath and put them to bed when we get home? Even mouse socks need to rest.”

Oh, maybe that was it. Maybe Mandy and Matilda weren’t hearing their mama mouse call. Maybe they were just tired and needed to rest, like her mama was just tired whenever Daisy wanted another story and another and her mother would kiss her on the forehead and stroke her hair and say she was just too tired for another story.

Maybe her mouse sisters were just trying to crawl off the socks and into bed like her mama crawled into bed after tucking Daisy into bed for the umpteenth time. Oh no. Daisy had to help Mandy and Matilda rest the way her mama helped her rest. She pushed off her sneakers and pulled the mouse socks off. They were sort of stinky and stiff, and Daisy felt bad that she hadn’t taken better care of her mouse sisters. She looked at her mama, waiting for her to scold her for not taking better care of Mandy and Matilda.

Scold her like Grandma had her mama. Said that her mama should have taken better care of Daisy’s daddy before he died. That maybe he wouldn’t have died if Daisy’s mother had done a better job.

It was not something Daisy was supposed to have heard, she knew that, because her mama had shushed her grandma right away and told her to keep her voice down so that Daisy didn’t hear, but Daisy had been listening next to the door in her bedroom even though she was supposed to be asleep.

“That’s all the poor child needs, Edith,” her mama had said to her grandma, and she’d sounded mad, which was not something Daisy’s mother sounded like very often.

Daisy closed her eyes. The fan belt or the mama mouse or whatever it was had stopped squealing and it was quiet in her mama’s car on their way home from Daisy’s school. Daisy hugged her mouse socks close to her and wondered how she could apologize to Mandy and Matilda for not being a better big sister.

“I will not have Daisy thinking that her father died because her mother did not take good care of him,” Daisy’s mother had hissed at her grandma in a voice that was low and sharp. “You know I took care of him, very good care of him. For the past six months I have done nothing but take care of him. Why do you think we’re so broke? But he died anyway, damnit. The cancer took our precious Reynold. He died and I and Daisy and you will never be the same without him,” her mama had said and then she’d started to cry.

Daisy had put her hand over her mouth when she heard that. She didn’t want her mama or her grandma to know that she was listening, that she was crying too.

Just remembering her mama crying made Daisy start to cry all over again. She’d never heard her mother cry before and now she couldn’t forget it.

Daisy pushed her mouse socks over her eyes, one mouse sister for each eye. She didn’t want her mama to see her crying there in the backseat of their rattle trap monstrosity with Mandy and Matilda getting wet and soggy and stinkier.

Maybe they were crying too. Maybe Mandy and Matilda were trying to tell her something. Maybe they needed to go home. Maybe she needed to let them go. Like her mama said they needed to let her daddy go.

“Mommy,” she said, and she held up her two perfect mouse socks.

“Yes, Puddinghead,” her mother said, looking in the rear-view mirror at Daisy in her booster seat holding up her two perfect mouse socks, one on each hand like puppets.

“I’m sorry, Mommy,” she said. “I think I need to let my mouse socks go like Daddy.”

And before her mama could say anything, before she could call her by another funny name or tease her for being a silly head or even fuss at her for wasting one whole dollar of her mama’s money, Daisy rolled down the window, kissed her new little sisters each once upon the nose, and tossed her baby mouse socks out into the grass on the side of the road where the squealing mouse mama inside her mama’s car could find them.

Author’s Biiography

Elizabeth Bruce’s collection, “Universally Adored & Other One Dollar Stories,” is forthcoming in 2024 from Vine Leaves Press. Her debut novel, And Silent Left the Place, won Washington Writers’ Publishing House’s Fiction Prize, with ForeWord Magazine and Texas Institute of Letters’ distinctions. She’s published in the USA, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India, South Korea, Israel, Sweden, Romania, Malawi, Yemen, and The Philippines. Her book, CentroNía’s Theatrical Journey Playbook: Introducing Science to Early Learners through Guided Pretend Play, won/placed in four contests. A DC-based “Tex-pat,” she’s received DC Commission on the Arts & Humanities, HumanitiesDC, and McCarthey Dressman Education Foundation fellowships, and studied with Richard Bausch, the late Lee K. Abbott, Janet Peery, John McNally, and Liam Callanan. A Co-Founder of DC’s Sanctuary Theatre, Elizabeth currently co-hosts Creativists in Dialogue: A Podcast Embracing the Creative Life. elizabethbrucedc.com