Candles for Algernon

I couldn't figure out what the smell in the kitchen was. Finally, I pulled out the drawer underneath the stove and there, at the very back, was a dead mouse, caught in a mousetrap that I'd left there last spring. I pulled the mouse out and gave it a proper burial by tossing it into the woods, and then I scrubbed the linoleum.

But still, the odor lingered. So I grabbed the two small yellow beeswax candles in glass votive candle holders that were sitting on a windowsill. I lit the candles and set them on the floor in front of the stove. Surely that would get rid of the smell, now that I'd removed the source.

My youngest son, With-a-Why, the only one of my four grown children still living at home, came downstairs and looked at the candles curiously.

With-a-Why: What's that?
Me: There was a dead mouse.
With-a-Why: So you're having a vigil?

Yes. That's it exactly.