W ith the kids at basketball, it’s an opportune time to fight about money, but neither of them has the energy or the will to continue. Instead, Richie drives to the gym, or so he claims, and Marina makes a batch of smoothies for later, dumping blueberries, yogurt, and whey powder into the blender without measuring. The smoothies began as a weekend treat—her idea, her fault—but have morphed into another daily chore that no one notices but everyone expects. Only the frozen fruit varies.
From the moment her eyes opened much too early, due to their inadequate blackout drapes, it was “internet bundle” this and “grocery budget” that kept coming out of her husband’s mouth. Then he yammered about the price of the winter coat and boots she’d bought on sale.
“Family funds, major purchases,” he’d complained, as if she didn’t also have a paycheque electronically deposited into their joint account twice a month.
Saturday has barely begun, and she is already exhausted. Crawl back into bed, her body begs.
And then she discovers a mouse in her kitchen sink. She is about to rinse out the Vitamix pitcher and jumps back, startled, when she spies it. The thing skitters beneath her hands and circles the basin of the shiny sink as if it’s an Indy racetrack. Marina doesn’t think, just reacts. She grips the sixty-four-ounce glass pitcher in two hands, raises it above the sink, and brings it down hard and fast.
The creature disappears under the raised lip of the pitcher’s base. A four-pointed blade inside the pitcher obscures her view, but Marina can see splayed, scrawny legs through the clear glass. She places the pitcher on the counter, reaches for her reading glasses on the windowsill, and examines the specimen in her kitchen sink. Her corrected vision brings the mouse into sharp focus. She has a clear view of its beady eyes. Open, staring.
One tiny, hairless foot wriggles.
No choice now, can’t let the thing suffer. This time, she pauses, considers, adjusts the direction of attack, calculates where the bottom lip of the jug must land. Takes her time because this mouse isn’t going anywhere.
Her aim is perfect. The bottom edge of the family-sized glass pitcher, it turns out, is an effective, bloodless guillotine. It breaks the neck without puncturing the skin. There’s a dent in the mouse’s torso from the impact of the opposite edge, and all foot movement has ceased.
She realizes that her blender manoeuvre must have worked like one of those old-school spring-loaded snappers.
“I’m the trap today, you little bastard,” she says to the lifeless creature. “That’s me.”
She has always had a complicated relationship with mice.
Marina and Izzy were hungover when they toured the North End flat. The night before, they’d made the rounds on Argyle Street in downtown Halifax after Marina broke up with her boyfriend, Richie. Again.
“Hope the third time’s a charm,” Izzy had said, over egg rolls and chicken fried rice at two in the morning.
The apartment smelled like what it was—a dump where a trio of twenty-year-old males lived and a fourth crashed on the couch. The guys had moved out, but my goodness, what they left behind: old socks, random dirty cutlery, donair remnants, congealed Kraft Dinner on mismatched plates in one of the bedrooms.
The landlord opened all the windows before they arrived, but it didn’t help. You can’t disguise the smell of unwashed, worn again, and still unwashed T-shirts. Of rotting garbage hanging in a plastic bag on a kitchen doorknob. The aroma of nocturnal activities, solo and duo, hung in the air.
Joey, the landlord, was a cousin of a friend. The rent paid his mortgage. He wasn’t much older than Marina and Izzy. It was the Labour Day weekend, and they needed an apartment before the fall term. Joey told them the flat was empty but not yet cleaned. If they wanted to see it before anyone else, this was the time.
“Great location, lots of potential,” said Joey, wannabe real estate mogul. Izzy liked that the bedrooms were about equal size, so no disputes over who got what. Marina liked the natural light streaming into the living room, sun dappling the maple floor.
But Jesus, the stench. She thought she would puke.
“Smells like something died in here,” she said.
Joey promised he’d scrub out the flat and they could move in next weekend.
“You better,” said Izzy and suggested they go to a nearby tavern to sign the lease.
On moving day, Marina carried a box of her mother’s old pots and dishes into the kitchen. The stovetop was filthy. Joey or whatever cut-rate cleaner he hired had shoved tinfoil covers onto burners that were blackened with grease and baked-on food. She opened the oven door. Looked like chunks of charcoal. Had those guys dumped the remains of a hibachi? She poked the blackened bits and looked more closely. Charred fur. A tail. More fur, more tails. She slammed it shut. Tried to yell but it came out as a squeak.
“Izzy. Izzy. Izzy.”
Marina found her in the driveway unloading a box of books and dragged her into the kitchen.
“What’s the panic?”
Marina pointed to the stove. Her friend opened the oven door, peered into the darkness.
“Gross,” said Izzy and shoved her head in to get a closer look. “Where’s that box with my rubber gloves?”
“Do you not see what I see?” said Marina.
“Good idea. We should take a picture.” Izzy was going into second-year law school. “We can get a rent cut from that asshole. Breach of contract.”
“Screw this,” said Marina. “I’m out.”
“Don’t be such a baby,” said Izzy. “Where’s my Polaroid?”
Marina slept in her old twin bed at her parents’ place that night. She sat on her floral bedspread and read magazines, permitted her mother to serve her grilled cheese with tomato soup for supper. After her parents went to bed, Marina went to the corner store, where she bought a large bag of ripple chips, a jar of onion dip, a pint of chocolate ice cream, and a family-size bag of Skittles. When she got home, she changed into pyjamas and set herself up in the den. She rearranged the couch cushions to make a backrest and settled in to watch The Tonight Show and Letterman, working her way through the chips and candy, then the ice cream. Salty, sweet, crunchy, creamy. When she was done, she stuffed the empty packages into her knapsack and shoved it in her closet.
Izzy phoned a few days later with news. She’d crafted a letter to Joey that included the phrase “incinerated vermin.” The letter helped her negotiate a rent cut of $120 a month, plus a visit from a pest control company.
“My advice? Just see this through. We’ll have fun.”
Marina could hear the living room TV blare downstairs as her parents watched the late news on the CBC. They were either going deaf or making themselves deaf.
“Remember, your name is on the lease, with mine,” said Izzy. “It’s a legally binding document.”
M arina started to bleed in the pre-dawn hours of day five of her honeymoon. The cramps woke her up with a pain that rumbled like distant thunder and then closed in at regular intervals. They were staying at a bed-and-breakfast in Lévis, taking a twelve-minute ferry ride across the St. Lawrence River to Quebec City every day to save on hotel costs. The breakfast of croissant and cappuccino that Marina had imagined turned out to be plastic-wrapped cheese slices on factory bread, with warmish coffee. She couldn’t sort out if the problem was her unrealistic expectations or the breakfast itself. What should you expect for forty bucks a night?
The room was so tiny that their bed was pushed up against the wall. A scratched maple chest of drawers blocked the bottom of the bed, so she had to climb over her husband to get to the bathroom. Richie didn’t wake up. He was a heavy sleeper.
The bathroom floor was covered in black and white octagonal tiles. Marina peeled off the red lace panties from her wedding shower and sat on the toilet. She leaned over, held herself in her arms, and studied the pattern of the floor.
This bathroom window must face east, thought Marina a few hours later as she watched the sun rise. How long would it be before Richie woke and noticed she wasn’t lying next to him?
The pain finally drove her into the bedroom. She turned on the harsh overhead light and nudged her new husband.
“We need to get to the hospital.”
“T his is nature’s way,” said the doctor with a kind, sad smile as the sun set that evening. His English was impeccable, and there was nothing to criticize about the treatment Marina got. She was numb from the waist down, drowsy with mild sedation. It was considered a minor procedure, so she was free to leave after a few hours in a recovery bed. They sent Richie and Marina on their way with a prescription for Tylenol with codeine. The doctor told them it was safe to travel but to take it easy and watch for signs of infection. Marina assumed they would drive straight home to Halifax. She wanted to sleep in her own bed. Richie assumed they would continue the road trip to see the Expos. The compromise was two nights at the Château Frontenac with room service before they started for Montreal.
“It’ll cheer you up,” he said. He held her hand on Chemin Sainte-Foy as they left old Quebec, his palm rubbing against her wedding ring.
They decided not to phone their parents. They hadn’t told anyone about the baby in the first place.
T heir studio apartment—billed as a “junior one-bedroom”—seemed to be just as they had left it. It was on the second floor of a building in downtown Halifax. The sleeping area was on the left when you came in the front door; there was a kitchenette and bathroom to the right, and two steps down to a sunken living room. A picture window overlooked a green space across from the Public Gardens. There was a pancake restaurant on the main floor where senior citizens and red-eyed students congregated. Richie could walk to the engineering firm where he was interning, and Marina could walk to the newspaper. An apartment for adults, Marina told Izzy.
Richie started unpacking as soon as they got in the door. Marina found a beer in the fridge and put her bare feet up on the new leather couch. They’d picked it together, spending two Saturday afternoons at furniture stores. The couch and matching chair were a gift from Richie’s parents when they’d skipped a big wedding and had a family-and-close-friends-only dinner in a private room at a steakhouse.
Out of the corner of her eye, Marina noticed a flash of movement across the living room carpet.
“Did you see that?”
“See what?”
“Nothing.”
She went back to staring out the window. Richie was sorting their dirty clothes into laundry loads.
“Sit with me,” she said a few minutes later. “Come on. It’s not like we’re putting it in tonight.”
Richie said he was almost finished.
“This is called helping. You don’t want to spend your last day of vacation washing clothes.”
“I wasn’t planning to. Am I supposed to?” she said, sitting up now. Feet on the floor.
She felt the slightest pressure on her ankle. Felt it, then saw it. A pink, two-inch alien with a tail. It raced across the floor and disappeared under an armchair. Another one ran through her legs and followed the first. Then a third materialized in front of her, moved across the floor, hit the wall, and raced along it. A fourth—or was it a fifth, or was it the first again—darted from under the chair and headed straight for her.
Hairless. Tiny. Everywhere. Marina climbed onto the sofa. Richie was separating cottons from knits when she screamed.
“What now?” he said.
She jumped off the couch and ran past him, hyperventilating down the hallway to Gary-the-super’s apartment, and banged on his door. When he opened, she couldn’t get the words out. Had to choose between speaking and breathing.
“Mice,” she finally said.
They moved in with Marina’s parents for a few weeks. She never entered their old apartment again. Refused to set foot in it even though Gary brought in an exterminator. The exterminator said the mother mouse likely came in under the apartment door. She used old newspapers to make a nest under the fridge, gave birth there.
“Bad timing,” said the exterminator.
“We’re clean people,” said Richie.
“Nothing wrong with you,” the exterminator said, as he was obliged to say to all infested clients. “Probably the pancake place downstairs. The apartment was empty and seemed safe to her is all.”
Izzy offered to write a letter to the property manager to get them out of their lease, but that wasn’t necessary. The building attracted young professionals who wanted to live downtown. The owners didn’t want rodent stories to get around, for the mice to be exaggerated into rats, or for a single nest to be gossiped into an infestation. Besides, Gary liked Marina and Richie, especially Marina. He was a fixture at the front door every morning, having a smoke as she left for work, and stationed there again when she came home at the end of the day. Always wanting to chat, telling her he liked what she was wearing, asking her what they were up to for the weekend. Borderline icky, Marina told Richie, but Richie said to take it as a compliment. “He’s like that with all the good-looking women in the building.”
Gary put in a good word, and the company offered Marina and Richie a bigger apartment on the eighth floor at the same rent.
“Take the deal,” Izzy advised, and they did.
The new apartment had a proper separate bedroom and a view of the Public Gardens. Richie was content, but the place was never the same for Marina. For him, the apartment was a step up. For her, the whole building was tainted. She was wary; there must be rodents here, maybe undetected, but somewhere.
What stands out for her from that time is the Dairy Queen that was across the street from their building. The summer they married, DQ came out with the Blizzard. Whenever Richie worked late, Marina crossed the green area in front of the apartment and tried out a new flavour combination. She liked to eat on a bench in the Public Gardens, tucked in next to the flower beds. Dipping the red plastic spoon slowly into melting ice cream until there was nothing left. There was always a garbage can to get rid of the empty cup, and a bathroom nearby to wash the sticky residue off her hands. She worked her way down the list: Strawberry Cheesecake, Oreo, Choco-Cherry Love.
S he looks at the carcass in her kitchen sink, worries the tail is suspiciously long. Richie and the boys aren’t home yet, so Marina handles the rodent forensics. She remembers reading up on mice when she was younger, but maybe it’s time for a refresher. She turns on the iPad, types in mouse versus baby rat. Pictures and charts pop up.
She roots around in the front closet to find the arts and crafts box from when the kids were little. Good—they still have fragments of Bristol board. She positions a piece of blue cardboard on the living room floor and searches the junk drawer in the kitchen for the barbecue tongs. She can’t find the tongs, so makes do with two soup spoons, balancing the corpse between them and moving slowly so she doesn’t drop it. She plunks the carcass on the cardboard, where the morning sun illuminates its brown and grey fur.
She’ll need to measure the body and tail, she decides, and heads back to the arts and crafts box for a ruler. The wooden ruler has a sharp edge to make straight lines and a numbered edge for measuring. Property of Jacob N. is scrawled in red marker along the front.
Marina uses one of the spoons to nudge the body against the ruler. She pokes the tail to straighten it. It measures three inches, a vote for mouse.
Body length is four inches. A bit long for a mouse.
Furry tail, not bald and scaly. Mouse.
Ears, hard to tell given the creature’s current condition. The chart tells her mice have bigger, floppy ears while rats have smaller ears and a bigger head. But this specimen has a broken neck and a crushed torso, so its proportions might be skewed.
Probably a mouse, not a baby rat. Probably. She can’t be sure. She snaps a picture with her phone and texts it to Izzy.
“Looks suspicious,” Izzy replies immediately.
Izzy is permanently suspicious, Marina thinks.
“Better check with an expert,” her friend writes.
Y ou know what they say about mice: there’s never just one. Even if you don’t see them or hear them, there are always others—somewhere in your home. They squeeze through tiny cracks and holes. They take advantage of weaknesses and flaws in your structure. That imperceptible opening where the electrical panel in your garage welcomes a thin wire into the wall of the main house, for instance. A rodent uses its sharp teeth to widen the space, and then it compresses and flattens its body thanks to a collapsible rib cage. If the mouse’s head can push through, the rest will follow.
The mouse slides into your walls via the electrical panel, and then it runs that shiny copper wiring like the Yellow Brick Road through the walls until its rodent instincts lead it to the back of your built-in dishwasher, where a slight gap the lazy installers left behind is an open door.
Your kitchen. This is as good a place as any to nest. The first mouse shows the trail to others. They aren’t too fussy about who they mate with, so when you take the kids skiing at Sugarloaf on March break, that’s an opportunity to love the one they’re with and expand their domain.
There is never just one mouse.
“I thought I heard something in the walls, but I ignored it,” Marina tells the exterminator on a Monday morning two weeks later, the first appointment available in a busy mouse season.
“You didn’t want to know,” he answers. “People never want to know.”
The exterminator is in his twenties, bald, and wears a navy cotton jumpsuit with Cory embroidered in cursive writing on a breast pocket. He balances a flashlight, phone, and clipboard.
The company’s website had pictures of glowing young families standing in front of pristine homes. Cory explains that, for mice, they give a three-month guarantee. He can seal openings and cracks, lay down traps and poison today, and come back in a few days to check things out.
But rats are something else.
“For that, we’d need a plan,” he says.
A mouse, mice, or even a colony of mice—this Marina can cope with. She’s not afraid, but vigilance is required. And poison, as Cory said.
Poison, traps, vigilance.
But rats . . .
“Let’s get started,” the exterminator says. “Basement to attic.”
“Can I show you something first?”
He shrugs.
The rodent carcass is in a freezer bag. Marina quarantined it in a corner of the chest freezer in the garage, after carefully reorganizing the Pizza Pockets, fries, plastic containers of homemade lasagna and chili, frozen fruit and vegetables, and the six chickens she’d bought on sale. She pulls on her blue rubber cleaning gloves and lifts the frozen hunk from the darkest corner of the freezer. She holds the bag flat across her palms and extends her arms to Cory.
“What do you think?”
He looks across at the frozen, dead rodent that his new client holds in her outstretched hands. He steps back for a second, then leans over.
“That’s . . . you kept it?”
He waves off her offer to take the bag.
“You don’t want to see it up close?”
Cory shakes his head, peering from two feet away at the ice crystals that cloud the plastic.
“Well,” he says, “that is something.”
An hour later, Marina and Cory drag the fridge into the middle of the kitchen. This is the final step in the house inspection. She can’t remember the last time anyone looked under the fridge, let alone cleaned.
The floor is covered in debris. It looks like someone spilled a bag of loose tea or black rice. The droppings cover a forgotten photo that had strayed, unnoticed, under the fridge.
A photo of their boys as toddlers. It used to be on the fridge door, secured for years under a magnet from a plumbing company. It must have slipped off the stainless steel, mislaid and unobserved for who knows how long. Rodent excrement now speckles the faded candy canes and elves on the boys’ Christmas pyjamas, obscures their tiny preschool faces. These children could be anyone’s kids.
The exterminator reaches down, but Marina moves more quickly than the young man.
“I’ll get that,” she says. Still wearing her rubber gloves, she grabs the picture from the floor and stuffs it into the deep pocket of her grey cardigan.
Excerpted, with permission, from We’re Not Rich, edited by Alexander MacLeod and published by Vagrant Press, an imprint of Nimbus Publishing, in October 2024.
