The Scent of Sunlight

by Annie Bellet

  * * *

   

  “You finished your homework?” Queenie asked Angel.

  He nodded. “Read to me?” he said, ducking his head.

  Still my baby. Queenie smiled. “Yeah, sweetie. You guys got library books with Mrs. Jimenez last week, right?”

  Both kids dashed off to grab books. Queenie leaned back into the sofa, adjusting where her hips were to avoid the hard bit of wood that stuck through a thin spot in the faded cushions.

  Angel came back with a book on India. The cover had heaping baskets of rice and a cinnamon-skinned woman in bright colors smiling at something just out of sight.

  “India? For school?”

  “We’re gonna be learning about it this week.” Angel shrugged. He was shy about how interested in school he was, but his book smarts made Queenie damned proud.

  “Cat in Hat, Cat in Hat, Cat in Hat.” Tabby bounced up onto the couch and jammed her book under Queenie’s arm.

  “Tabby, your brother was here first. We’ll read about India and then I’ll read the Cat in the Hat, okay?” She pulled her baby close and let the book slide to the floor.

  “Tabby,” Angel said with a sly look, “Know what they got in India?”

  Tabby shook her head as Queenie opened the book to the first chapter. It was about a family working in rice fields.

  “Tigers. Biggest ones ever.” Angel smiled.

  “Tigers!” Then Tabby thought about it. “Not biggest. Veld has biggest ever. Tell him, mommy.”

  Both kids looked to her and Queenie suppressed a sigh. She didn’t want to think about the Veldt, to face what had happened the day before. It only scared her. She felt small and young and so very cold.

  “The Veldt has big tigers, too. Just like India,” she said, trying for a happy medium.

  “No, no. They bigger.” Tabby shook her head, her tiny pink mouth set in a stubborn line.

  “Don’t be a baby. The Veldt isn’t even real, stupid.” Angel’s words shocked Queenie and she looked at him. His face was tight and hard.

  “Angel! Don’t talk to your sister that way.”

  “Is not true, Angel. Mommy and I were there yesterday.” Tears made Tabby’s eyes shine as they spilled slowly over onto her round, dark cheeks.

  “No you weren’t. Lying is bad. Mom, she’s lying,” Angel said.

  Both children looked at her again, their faces accusing, Tabby’s also full of sorrow and hope. Queenie stood up, pushing them both away.

  “Angel, go take a time out. No, don’t argue with me, boy. Do it.” She didn’t want to yell but she was too tired and her voice rose without permission. “Tabby, you too. Go be quiet and count to fifty. Then we can read. Now, Tabby.”

  Both kids glared at her and Tabby stuck her tongue out at Angel. Queenie pretended not to see that. They disappeared behind the curtain and Queenie sat back down on the couch, gathering both books up and setting them next to her. She could hear whispered arguing coming from the bedroom, but couldn’t bring herself to go enforce the quiet time.

  The world felt darker, colder. Her tiny apartment was dingy, closed in. She couldn’t take the tightness of it anymore, not after that taste of blue sky and sheer openness the day before. It was burned into her memory as real as any of her other memories. Peaceful, safe, warm. Everything she longed for, there for a moment, a brief taste, and then ripped away again. Her eyes burned and her throat tightened but she refused to cry. If she let go now, fell apart even a little, she might never pick up all the pieces.

  “Mommy! Mouse, mouse.” Tabby dashed out of the bedroom, pointing behind her. “Angel caught it.”

  “What?” Queenie got up, horrified. They didn’t have mice in this city, just rats. Big ones that carried who knew what diseases. If Angel got bit. . . Queenie forced away the worries, horrified that her first thought had been I can’t afford a doctor.

  She stumbled into the bedroom. Angel knelt on the bed he shared with Tabby, his hands loosely cupped around an impossibility.

  It was a mouse, but not just any mouse. It was about the size of Tabby’s fist with a long golden tail that curled around Angel’s wrist and big violet eyes. Its golden fur was marked with bright purple spots.

  “It’s a Veldt mouse,” Queenie said.

  Both children gave her the look that said “duh”.

  “We need a box or something, get that one Angel’s shoes came in.” Queenie doubted that the mouse would stay in the box, it looked like it could jump as high as her head with its long hind legs. But it seemed content to sit in Angel’s hands.

  Tabby dug through the closet and dragged out the shoebox. Angel gently set the mouse down in it. Queenie pulled open the dresser and grabbed a tee shirt that was destined for the patches box anyway and made a little bed in the box. The mouse curled up with a tiny squeak, its tail wrapping around its body twice.

  “His name is Wudget,” Tabby said as they carried the sleeping mouse to the kitchen table.

  “How come you get to name him? I caught him.” Angel had forgotten the previous argument already.

  “Hush, both of you. Tabby came up with the mice, remember? They are hers.” Queenie shook her head. This wasn’t happening. But it was. She couldn’t deny things, not like this, not in front of her children. Maybe the hallucination would go away. Maybe, just maybe, it wouldn’t.

  The phone rang.

  “I’ll get it!” Angel yelled, startling Wudget the mouse.

  “No, Angel, I’ll get it. Get a dish and put some water in for Wudget,” Queenie said. She reached over and answered the phone. “Hello?”

  The voice on the other end was female and sounded friendly enough. “Ms. Hayes?”

  “Yes?” Queenie wondered if this were Ms. Stringer. Why would a teacher call on a Sunday?

  “Ms. Hayes, I’m Ingrid Williams, and I’m with the Office of Children and Family Services.”

  Queenie went dead still and then swallowed. “Yes?” she said, keeping her voice utterly flat.

  “Some teachers at your daughter, Tabitha’s, school called us because they were concerned. So I’m just doing a follow-up, all right? I only need to ask you a few routine questions, if you have a minute?” Ingrid’s voice was casual, calm. The way Queenie talked to her kids when they were scared.

  “Do you have kids, Ms. Williams?” Queenie asked.

  “Mrs, please,” the woman said, then hesitated before answering, “yes, Ms. Hayes, I have three boys, all grown now.”

  “And,” Queenie said, biting into the words, “did a stranger ever call you and ask these ‘routine’ questions?”

  “Now, Ms. Hayes, you sound upset. This is really nothing to be worried about. I’m calling because people are concerned. We’ll just get started then, all right?”

  It was not all right but Queenie just clenched her jaw and said nothing.

  “All right. Do the children have grandparents?”

  “Don’t you have that information?” Queenie said. “My mom is dead, and Bill is in jail for it.” She refused to call him dad. “And before you ask, no, the dad isn’t in their lives either. Thanks for reminding me that I’m a fucking statistic.”

  “Mommy, you can’t say that.” Angel looked up at her from his perch on one of the green metal dining chairs.

  “Ms. Hayes, please. I’m not here to upset you. Maybe we should do this in person.”

  “I have to go. My kids need lunch.” Queenie said and slammed the phone back into its cradle. She clenched and unclenched her fists.

  “We just had lunch,” Angel pointed out. “What did that person want?”

  “Did Tabby have her lunch on Friday?” Queenie said once she’d gotten control of herself again.

  Angel’s guilty look told her all she needed to know. He mumbled that he was sorry.

  “Hey, it’s okay, Angel baby.” It wasn’t, but she leaned so heavily on her son. His mistakes weren’t his fault. She’d been called and asked about forgotten lunches before. Queenie sighed.

  “Mom,
” Angel said as she lowered herself into a chair and put her head in her hands, “Mom, this woman came out a couple times last week and walked Tabby in. She tried to ask me stuff, but I told her I had school and walked off fast.”

  “That’s Ms. Stringer,” Tabby said. She was running a gentle finger over the polkadot body of the mouse and the little impossible thing was purring.

  “So she saw I wasn’t with you guys.” That made sense. Queenie rubbed her hand over her eyes. Another thing to deal with. But she’d manage. She always found a way.