Sipsworth

by Simon Van Booy

The front garden had been paved over, but cracks in the cement sometimes bled flowers she could name, as though just below the surface of this world are the ones we remember, still going on.

As so often happens, her last thought before dozing off takes on new life as a dream:

She senses her father again. But unlike Orpheus she knows not to look with her eyes.

Who knows if such places have a budget for expensive fruit. They could even be shared with the other mice. That would help him make friends.

Except he is downstairs in a pie box. Not dying. And for the first time in many years, against her better judgement, neither is she.

The mouse is holding the nut in its paws like a small balloon. Then the song comes on. The one she learned by heart as a child when her father was at sea. Helen is breathless. “That little girl is Judy Garland.”

“I don’t expect you to watch the film,” she says to the end of its tail, “but do listen. It’s a nice song about a rainbow . . . it’s not really about that, you understand, it’s about something else. I used to sing it when I was little, hoping that my father . . . wherever he was . . . might hear my voice and come home.”

Helen notices her hand trembling⁠—not because she’s holding a live mouse, but because it’s the first time she’s been touched by another living thing for over twenty years. And then the lights go out. “Bugger,” says an old voice in the darkness.

“Cartwright . . .” Kathy says slowly. “Helen Cartwright . . . why does your name seem familiar?” “The Cartwright Aortic Stem Valve. I invented it in 1983.”

Dr. Jamal cups them in his. “If we can’t take care of our own when the time comes, then what’s the point of it all, eh?”