After the Parade

by Lori Ostlund

  His uncle handed Mark a small booklet, from which Mark began to read a story about a young man who had been wounded in Vietnam. Aaron knew that Vietnam was a war because his father had talked about it at the supper table, especially about the Draft Dodgers, of whom his father spoke with great contempt. At first, Aaron did not know who the Draft Dodgers were or why his father hated them, but he did know what a draft was. When his mother came into his room at bedtime, she wiggled his window shut, saying, “You need to keep this closed, Aaron. There’s a draft. You don’t want to get sick.” Then, she laid her hand on his brow for just a moment. There was nothing better than the feel of her warmth against his coolness.

  “What are Draft Dodgers?” he asked her one night after his father had spoken of them angrily throughout supper yet again.

  “They’re young men who run away to Canada to escape the draft,” his mother said, adding softly, “They don’t want to die.” From the way she said this, Aaron knew that she considered it perfectly reasonable not to want to die. Then she reached up and wiggled his window closed, keeping him safe.

  In the story that Mark read, there were no Draft Dodgers. The young man who came home wounded from Vietnam wrote to his mother from the hospital, asking whether he might stay with her until he got his strength back. He also requested permission to bring a friend who had lost both legs and had nowhere else to go. The mother wrote back, explaining that she looked forward to her son’s homecoming. “But,” the letter went on, “I am not strong enough to care for someone without legs. I am sure that your friend has family that can take him in. I know you will understand.”

  His aunt began to sob, and Mark read the ending quickly: the mother was soon visited by an army officer, who told her that her son had wheeled himself out a hospital window to his death. “It’s like that sometimes,” the officer said. “A young man loses his legs and can’t figure out how to go on.” His aunt gasped and sobbed even more, pressing her reddened hands to her mouth while his cousins stared into their empty popcorn bowls.

  Aaron did not know what to make of the story. It was not until he recalled it as a teenager that he realized the son had been talking about himself, that he was the legless friend. However, he would never understand—not as a teenager, not even as an adult—whether the son had killed himself because he felt his mother would no longer love him, or because he could not bear knowing that she had failed his test. Never did he consider that it had nothing to do with the mother at all.

  * * *

  “We’re putting you in with Zilpah,” his uncle said. Zilpah was the cousin who had spilled her milk. “I know you might not like sharing with a girl, but she’s the only one with her own room.” His aunt brought him a pair of Matthew’s pajamas, and after he had changed, she told him to kneel on the floor to pray. He knelt on the orange carpet next to Zilpah, and then they stood and crawled into bed together, his head at her feet, as his aunt instructed.

  “We’re not allowed to study dinosaurs,” Zilpah said once they were alone in the dark room.

  “Why?” he asked, though he had little interest in dinosaurs.

  “My father says they’re sinful.” Her voice floated up from his feet. “We also have to leave the room if the teacher talks about Edgar Allan Poe. He wrote a story about a man who cut up a heart and put it under the floor but it was still beating, like this—boom, boom.” She sounded like a flute impersonating a drum. “Ruth’s teacher read them the story, and then Ruth told us the story at supper, and my father was very angry.”

  “Why did he cut up the heart?” Aaron asked.

  “Put your head under the blanket and I’ll tell you.” He felt a rush of air on his feet as she lifted her end, and he did the same. “The devil told him to,” she whispered. He pulled his head back out because it frightened him to be under the blanket with her saying “devil” just to him.

  “What’s your name?” he asked, because all he could recall was that it was something strange.

  She pulled her head out also. “Zilpah,” she said. “Z-I-L-P-A-H.” Aaron did not tell her that letters meant nothing to him because he had not yet started school. “It’s very uncommon to have a name that starts with Z. It’s from the Old Testament. My father says the great achievements have been made by men and that makes it hard to find good Bible names for girls.”

  “My mother named me after a lake,” he said. “Lake Aaron. She used to go swimming there with her grandfather when she was little.”

  “Well, Aaron’s a Bible name. The lake was probably named after the Bible,” Zilpah said. She giggled. “Do you ever wet the bed?”

  “Not much,” he said, which was true.

  “Me too,” she said. “Do you know that I have a condition?”

  “What’s a condition?” he asked.

  “I have a condition with my heart. I was born that way.”

  “Can the doctor fix it?” According to his mother, doctors could not fix everything.

  “My father doesn’t want them to,” Zilpah whispered. “He’s healing me with prayer. The doctor told him he was being irresponsible.”

  “What does irresponsible mean?” Aaron asked.

  “It means he’s not taking care of me,” she explained.

  “The doctor said that?” It astonished him to think of someone saying such a thing to his uncle. “What did your father say?”

  “He was very angry. He called the doctor ‘O ye of little faith.’ Then he told my mother to get me ready to go home, and he went to get the car. The doctor talked to my mother outside my room, and when she came back in, she was crying. She put my things in the suitcase, and I got to ride in a wheelchair, and we came home.”

  “My mother is in the hospital,” Aaron said.

  “I know. Our mother told us. Does she have a condition?”

  “I’m not sure,” said Aaron. “She cries a lot. Is that a condition?”

  “Well, my mother cries a lot because of my condition. I don’t really cry, except when I can’t play with Matthew and Mark.”

  “Is playing fun?” Aaron asked, for there was something about the dark room and Zilpah’s voice that made him feel he could ask such things.

  “Of course playing is fun,” Zilpah said. “Don’t you like to play?”

  “I don’t know,” he told her. “I don’t think I’ve played before.”

  “That’s silly. You must play sometimes.”

  Aaron gave this some thought. “No, I’m pretty sure I’ve never played. Not with other kids. I play by myself sometimes.” He could feel Zilpah’s breath on his toes.

  “I know what,” Zilpah said. “I’ll ask Matthew and Mark to play with you. That way, you can see if you like it.” Her voice was so kind that he felt he might cry. “I love Matthew and Mark,” she said in a slow, sleepy voice.

  “Don’t you like the others?” he asked. The topic of siblings interested him.

  “Not so much,” she said. “I love them, but they never do anything that would make my father angry, even if it’s something really fun.”

  “What are their names?” Aaron asked, wanting to keep her awake because he could not imagine being awake without her.

  “Leah is the oldest, then Ruth. They always wear braids. Jonah is next. He’s the fat one, and my father always says to him that he named him after Jonah and not the whale and to go out and ride his bike.” Zilpah giggled. “Then Matthew and Mark are the ones that got switched after supper. They get switched all the time, but they don’t care. They hate onions. My father tells my mother to put onions in everything so they’ll learn to eat what’s put in front of them. My father loves onions.”

  “My father liked them also. He hated pancakes, so we only had them when he was at work. He died, but we still don’t have pancakes because my mother forgets to go to the store. Do people who don’t have legs eat less?” he asked, now that he knew people could be legless.

  “I don’t know,” said Zilpah. “I don’t know anybody who doesn’t have legs.”

&
nbsp; “You didn’t meet any in the hospital?”

  “The only person I met in the hospital was the foster. She was my roommate.”

  “Who’s the foster?” he asked.

  “She’s the one who helped my mother clear the table after supper.”

  “Is she your sister?”

  “She is not my sister,” Zilpah said.

  “Who is she then?”

  “She’s just . . . foster.”

  “Why don’t you like Foster?”

  “Her name’s not Foster. It’s just what she is. She doesn’t belong here.”

  “Am I foster?” Aaron asked, thinking it sounded awful to be foster.

  “No,” Zilpah assured him. “You’re not foster. For one thing, I wouldn’t let you sleep with me if you were foster. They wanted her to sleep with me, but I said no, so she has to sleep with Ruth and Leah. They like her, so it doesn’t matter. I get to have my own room because of the condition. I need lots of rest. But I don’t mind if you’re here. Besides, my mother said you wouldn’t be here long, just until your mom’s better.”

  “She said that?”

  “Yes, and she said we have to pray because she might have the devil in her like Edgar Allan Poe.”

  Aaron sat up. “She doesn’t have the devil in her.”

  “How do you know?” Zilpah asked.

  It was true. He didn’t know. His aunt opened the door. “I’m going to have to move Aaron if I hear anything else out of the two of you,” she said.

  After she shut the door again, they giggled quietly, and soon Zilpah’s breathing became slower. He had awakened that morning in his own bed, his father squinting at him from the night table, but he would fall asleep in this bed, a bed belonging to a stranger who was his cousin, and when he woke up, still in this bed, it would be a new day and there would be nothing connecting him to his real life. He closed his eyes, and when he opened them, it was morning.

  6

  * * *

  Three days later, school started, but Aaron was not allowed to go, despite the new dress shoes. He stayed behind with his aunt. Each morning she packed lunches while his cousins readied themselves, chaotically, for school, the mood in the house lighter because his uncle had already left for his job managing the first shift at the beet plant. At eight o’clock, somebody—usually the Foster—announced the arrival of the school bus, which led to one final burst of activity before the house became still, the front door standing open in his cousins’ wake because the last one out never knew he was last. Closing it became Aaron’s job, and because he craved duties, was comforted by routine, he liked being in charge of the door, though his heart ached at how easily he had stepped through the gate into this new life.

  Only then did Aaron and his aunt have breakfast. She said a prayer, and they ate English muffins, which were his aunt’s favorite, but he could not get used to their sourness or the way they scratched the roof of his mouth. While they ate, she told him stories that would have scared him at any time of day but seemed particularly terrifying at breakfast. She said that if he passed a pigsty and the pigs were leaping in the air, it meant the devil was floating overhead and the pigs were trying to devour him. Another morning, she took a can of corn from the cupboard and pointed at the bar code on the back. Someday, they would attempt to put a bar code just like it on his body, she said, taking his wrist and tapping it to show where the bar code would go. It was called the mark of the beast and he must never let them do it. He did not know who “they” were, but he liked the way she held his wrist, leaving buttery fingerprints behind, and he assured her that he would not.

  Next, they took out the cleaning supplies, and his aunt let him help her clean, though it had to be their secret. He discovered that he liked cleaning, and he thought that his aunt liked having his help. It was always noon when they finished, so they sat at the table and ate again, usually bread with a slice of Velveeta and cottage cheese, his aunt chatting the whole while about everyday things that did not involve the devil or the mark of the beast. Mainly, she talked about a church luncheon that she was in charge of planning. “It’s a big responsibility,” she said. He nodded, and she turned over an envelope to take notes. “There will be buns with ham. Do you think it’s better to serve them open-faced or with the tops on?”

  “What will you do with the tops if you don’t put them on?” he asked.

  “Well, the tops will be another open-faced sandwich,” she explained. “With ham on them.” Her reddened hands made a somersault, demonstrating how this would work.

  “That sounds nice,” he said.

  “Do you think so? I just don’t know.” This was where the conversation about the luncheon usually ended.

  One day as his aunt sat looking defeated and he sat wondering how to reassure her, the telephone rang. She stood up and answered it. “Yellow,” she said, her voice sunny like the color, and in a quieter voice, “Oh, Dolores. How are you?” He moved closer so that he could hear his mother’s voice. “Rusks,” his aunt said, and then, “I’ll put him on.”

  He took the receiver, which was still warm and carried a cheese smell. His mother sounded far away, like she was asleep and was calling him from inside her dream. “Are you being good for your aunt and uncle?” she asked.

  He nodded, unaccustomed to using the telephone, and then, realizing she was waiting, he said, “Yes, I am. Are you in the hospital?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Are you sick?”

  “I guess I am.”

  “Where does it hurt?” he asked.

  “I’m very tired,” she said. “Have you ever felt like that? So tired that you only wanted to sleep?” He waited for her to say more. He could hear something in the background, a television maybe. Finally, his aunt said, “Time to hang up, Aaron,” and she held out her hand for the receiver. He turned away and said what his mother always said to him after the book and the kiss and just before the dark. “Sweet dreams.” He handed the phone back to his aunt because sweet dreams was always the last thing.

  * * *

  At his aunt and uncle’s house, the day after Saturday was not called Sunday; it was called the Sabbath, a name that appealed to Aaron because it sounded clean. On the Sabbath, the entire family—his aunt and uncle, his cousins, and the Foster—went to church, his uncle driving them in two batches. Aaron wore his new dress shoes on the Sabbath because his aunt said that sneakers were not appropriate in God’s House. God’s House was not a house at all; it was a church, of the sort that he had passed with his parents many times though never entered because his parents were not interested in churches. On the second Sabbath, all the adults in the church, including his aunt and uncle, took turns going to the front and kneeling while the pastor stood over them. Aaron was used to seeing his aunt on her knees because they scrubbed the floors together each morning, but he could not reconcile his stern, unbending uncle with the contrite figure kneeling at the front of the church. When they returned to the pew, his aunt had purple commas turning up from the corners of her mouth. The sight of them made him queasy.

  “What do you do when you go to the front of the church?” he asked his aunt at breakfast the next morning.

  “We eat the body of Christ, and then we drink his blood,” his aunt said.

  “Does God know you do that?” he asked. She had explained that Christ was God’s son.

  “You’re such a funny boy,” his aunt said. She giggled as if he had said something clever. “Of course, God knows. Remember what I told you? He knows everything.”

  His father had had a name for people who wanted to know everything, like their neighbor Mrs. Severson, who spent her days peering out the window. When his father pulled up each evening, she’d rushed out to ask him how many arrests he had made that day. His father called these people busybodies.

  “Is God a busybody?” Aaron asked.

  “Oh, Aaron,” said his aunt, her voice like a slow shattering of glass. She stared at him the way that people at his father’s
funeral had, then took his hand between her own, which were sticky with jam. He could tell that he had disappointed her, though he wasn’t sure how. He took in one, tiny breath, but it exited his body in great, hiccupping sobs.

  As he cried, his aunt continued to hold his hand, her mouth forming words he could not understand. After a while, she led him to Zilpah’s bed, where he fell into a deep sleep. When he awakened, she was still there, peering down at him, her face flushed. “You beat him,” she said. He lay still, his right hand flung up across his sweaty forehead, breathing in and out and missing his mother, who always awakened him from naps with a glass of water in hand because she knew how thirsty it made him to rest. “He was in you, Aaron. I prayed, but you did it.”

  “Who was in me?” he asked, alarmed.

  “Satan,” his aunt said. She too was sweaty. “You called God a busybody, but he was making you do it. He was using your voice. Satan is clever, but you defeated him.” She stood up. “You rest some more.”

  “I already rested,” he said.

  “You weren’t asleep even fifteen minutes,” she said. “You must be exhausted. I’ll take care of things around here this morning.”

  He stayed in Zilpah’s bed, listening to the now-familiar sounds of the toaster being depressed and the tapping of a spoon inside a cup. He could picture his aunt measuring sugar into her coffee as she sat in her robe beneath the broken Last Supper eating a second English muffin. Finally, he heard what he had been listening for: the muted swish of his aunt’s slippers against the hallway carpet, the bathroom door being closed partway.

  His aunt suffered from constipation. Constipation was not a word he’d known when he came to stay, but during one of their first breakfasts together, she explained it to him with a clarity that was rare for her. She spoke matter-of-factly, and he tried to match her tone, though he was deeply embarrassed by talk of bathroom activities. “I’ve tried everything,” she said. “Now, your uncle, he eats one minute and goes the next.”