Lori Ostlund - After the Parade

“You better go,” his aunt said. She knelt and began mopping up the dirty water, wringing the rag into an ice cream bucket. He went into the living room, where the others sat waiting. They stared at him, this boy who had come home with their father, plugged up the toilet, and delayed devotions. One of the girls handed him a cereal bowl of popcorn, which she said he could not touch until devotions began. When his aunt joined them, she set her bowl on the floor away from her.

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.