Lori Ostlund - After the Parade

“Like what?”

His mother turned from the road to smile at him, and he saw that she was wearing lipstick. “I think he just didn’t like how happy I was with the Goulds.”

A memory came to him, of his father leaning toward him at the Paul Bunyan Park in Bemidji, saying, “Look, son. There go some Jews.”

“Were there Jews at the Paul Bunyan Park?” he asked.

His mother looked over at him again. “Sometimes you ask the oddest questions, Aaron. I suppose there were Jews there.” She paused, but he did not realize that she was waiting for him to explain his question. Finally, she went on with her story.

“The Goulds had big parties, twenty or thirty people, and I did everything — cooked, baked, served — and you know what? I was good at it. All of their friends told them how lucky they were to have me. And when I told them I was leaving, Mrs. Gould cried. Your grandparents didn’t cry when I left home. On my last night, they took me out for supper because they said it wouldn’t be right for me to cook. We had wine, and Mr. Gould made a toast and said they wished me all the best. While we were waiting for our desserts, he pushed an envelope across the table to me. He said it was just a little something to express their gratitude, but I didn’t realize it was money, so I opened it — right there in front of them — and they both looked away. Inside was a brand-new fifty-dollar bill. Fifty dollars for no reason, and I chose your father.”

His mother was quiet then.

* * *

They drove for a long time, hours he thought. Eventually, his mother took a piece of paper from her purse and held it above the steering wheel, studying it as she drove. They passed through a small town, and she glanced at the paper and began counting mailboxes. Just past the sixth one, she turned right onto a narrow gravel road, but after a few minutes it forked in front of them. She stopped the car and tossed the paper onto the seat between them. “Well, what do you think?” she asked Aaron. “Left or right?”

“I don’t know,” he said.

She spotted a tractor that had just crawled into view in the field to the left of them. “Stay put,” she said, as if he were a different sort of boy, daring and naughty, and not the boy he was, a boy overwhelmed by open spaces. She climbed down into the grassy ditch beside the road, making her way toward the tractor. When Aaron saw the man driving it lift his hand at her in greeting, he picked up the paper from the seat. Along the bottom was a map, hand-drawn with directions. The short letter on top was written in cursive, which he was just learning.

Dear Dolores [it read],

Surely you don’t expect condolences for him from me. Still, I’m glad to hear from you. I’ve been living back on the farm with Clarence, who needs some help. Mother died several years ago. A visit would be [here a word had been scribbled out completely and replaced with another] fine.

Try to come alone. We have lots of catching up to do.

Gloria

When his mother got back in the car, she took the right side of the fork and soon pulled up beside a tilting mailbox. “Does it say Bjorklund ?” she asked, and Aaron climbed partway out his open window to get a better look. The letters were faded, but he could make out a capital B .

“I think so,” he said.

Before he could pull his head back inside, his mother stepped on the gas. His forehead jolted hard against the window frame, but she seemed not to notice. She turned into the driveway and followed it between a stand of trees, curving past a school bus with missing front tires, weeds growing up around it.

“Why do they have a bus?” he asked.

“I have no idea,” said his mother.

“Can I look at it?”

“No.” She spoke sharply. “Later maybe.”

They stopped in front of the farmhouse, which was gray and sat on a small incline that sloped up from the driveway. As they got out of the car, five dogs emerged from a barn at the end of the driveway and ran toward them, barking and growling. Aaron started to get back inside the car, but a woman came out onto the porch and yelled at the dogs, and they stopped barking and began to wag their tails. The woman stepped off the porch and stood with her hands on her hips, regarding Aaron and his mother. She was not old, but her hair, clipped in a bowl style, was the same weathered gray as the house. She wore striped overalls with a white tank top cut low under the arms and crusty work boots, and her torso was like a tree trunk, solid with no variation in circumference to mark her hips or waist. Aaron had never seen such muscles on a woman: it was as if someone had slit open her arms and stitched oranges inside.

“Gloria,” his mother said, holding her purse up in front of her.

The woman ducked her head. “Dee,” she replied. She did not step closer.

“This is Aaron,” his mother said.

The woman ducked her head again, said, “Aaron” and “You’d better come in then,” and they followed her up the porch steps to the door, where his mother gave him a shove so that he entered first, tripping slightly into the room.

There were doilies everywhere, on the furniture and under knickknacks and even hanging over the couch, that one the size of a car tire and stiff with starch. “I learned to tat a few years ago,” the woman said, sounding apologetic.

His mother fingered one of the doilies. “You were always good with your hands,” she said.

A flush spread from Gloria’s neck to her chin and cheeks. She spun and left the room. Aaron’s mother settled on the couch, patting it to indicate that he should join her, but he remained standing. He did not feel at ease in other people’s homes. To demonstrate that she did, his mother lifted a bowl of walnuts from the coffee table and rummaged through it, selecting one, which she fit into the nutcracker. It resembled the vise in his father’s workshop. As his mother turned the handle, a large screw applied pressure to the nut. Aaron drew closer, waiting for the nut to burst, but when it did, he still jumped, his heart knocking hard in his chest. He looked up, and there was a dwarf. The dwarf sat in a wheelchair, perched atop a cushion. He wore a bright red shirt buttoned to the very top, the deep creases along both sleeves pointing the way to his inordinately large head. His hair was the color of the rust that collected on cars that had faced numerous Minnesota winters, and it clashed — wonderfully! — with his shirt and with the lurid pinks and purples of the afghan wrapped like a skirt around his legs. His feet, clad in black sandals over brown socks, dangled just above the footrests. All of these features Aaron noted only later, for he could not stop staring at the man’s nostrils, from which protruded tusks, slick like melting icicles. The man scowled at Aaron.

“This is Clarence,” Gloria said. “My brother.” She placed a hand atop the man’s head, and he scowled again.

“I’m pleased to meet you, Clarence,” Aaron’s mother said. She rose and went to shake his hand.

“Clary has really been looking forward to meeting you,” Gloria said. “Haven’t you, Clary?”

He grimaced at Aaron a bit longer before turning to Aaron’s mother. “Quite,” he said and took her outstretched hand. “Dolores, Sister has told me a good deal about you. I understand that you are widowed?” His voice was high and nasal, but he had acquired the dual habits of enunciating and speaking slowly, pausing to breathe through his mouth. Aaron’s mother nodded, her hand still gripped by his. “From what Sister has told me of your late husband, it would seem very little grieving is required.” He released her hand. “Hit by a pack of Shriners, Sister claims. Can this be true?”