Lori Ostlund - After the Parade

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The Ngs’ arguments were intensifying, in frequency and in volume. Aaron did not have the courage to address the situation directly, to go upstairs, knock on their door, and stand there explaining that he could hear them, that he had been listening to them scream for three months now. He could not get by on so little sleep, which meant he would need to move soon. This was what he was contemplating as he and Bill sat in the café ten days after his birthday, having a beer though it was not yet two o’clock because classes had been dismissed early, after a jackhammer started up in the street outside the school.

“I found her,” Bill said. He was actually well into his second pint.

Aaron did not reply. All around them people were writing essays, eating sandwiches, and talking loudly into their cell phones even though the café had a policy. Bill took an envelope from his coat pocket and set it beside Aaron’s beer. It was small, like the envelopes his mother had put Mr. Rehnquist’s rent checks in. Aaron recalled how she had placed the envelopes under Mr. Rehnquist’s coffee cup instead of handing them to him directly.

“There was nothing in public records,” Bill went on. “No tax documents or DMV trail. She doesn’t vote or own property. I found a tax bill from 1983, unpaid. That was it. It was like she left that night and ceased to exist.”

The envelope remained on the table. Bill finished his second beer, his face, which was always florid, becoming even more so. Three days later, on Monday morning, Aaron would arrive at school, where Marla would be waiting with poorly concealed excitement to announce that Bill was dead, that as he sat in his car Saturday night, conducting surveillance on a man who was cheating on his wife, he had suffered a massive stroke, his body eventually discovered by the very man whom he had been following, who would in this way learn that he was the focus of an investigation. “Can you believe it?” Marla would say, referring not to the fact that Bill was dead but to this strange final twist. Aaron would be one of five people at the funeral, and after the service, he would go home and open the envelope Bill had given him one week earlier, the envelope that currently sat, untouched, beside his beer.

Aaron pointed at Bill’s empty glass. “Another?”

Bill nodded and pushed his glass toward Aaron, and Aaron got up and stood in line, ordered Bill’s third beer, and brought it back to the table.

“I found the Gronseth guy easy enough through public records,” Bill said, “so I called him. Said he hadn’t heard from her in years, but he was pretty sure he knew where she was. He’s a chatty guy.”

They were both drinking fast. When you were drinking, you didn’t need to talk. “Did you speak with her?” Aaron asked at last.

“No,” Bill said. “That’s not my business. I called and pretended to be working for the census bureau, just confirmed that she lived there.” He reached over and tapped the envelope. “It’s all here,” he said. “Telephone numbers and addresses. I know you think you don’t want it, but it’s here. You can decide what to do with it.”

“Okay,” Aaron said. “Can I buy you another? Or maybe something to eat?”

Bill’s glass was still half full, and Aaron could not imagine him eating beetloaf or quinoa fried rice. Bill looked at his watch and stood up. “I’ve got a guy I’m keeping an eye on. His wife’s suspicious. He gets off work in a few, so I better get going.”

“Bill?” Aaron called after him. Bill turned. “Thank you.”

Bill nodded. “See you Monday.”

“See you Monday,” Aaron agreed, because there was no reason to think that he would not, and he picked up the envelope and put it in his pocket.

The grass around the bus was high, obscuring the wheels and even the black lettering on the side that announced the name of a school whose students the bus had once shuttled. Aaron supposed the school no longer existed, that it had been consolidated like those in so many small towns. He wondered whether there were still wasps living inside the bus but thought that Gloria had probably disposed of them after the attack, the way people put down dogs that were biters. He parked the car, an airport rental, got out, and slammed the door loudly, but no one came from the house to greet him. He shooed away three dogs that barked at him halfheartedly, climbed the porch steps, and knocked. After several minutes — during which he heard nothing from inside — the door opened.

It was his mother. She looked old, not simply older, for of course she was older, but old. It was not just one thing — wrinkles or jowls or bad teeth — but all of them combined, years of ignoring dentists and hairdressers and doctors, of ignoring the expectations of the world. During the three-hour drive from the Twin Cities, he had worried about numerous things, including how they would greet each other, so he was relieved when she said, “Hello, Aaron,” stepped back, and motioned him inside.

The doilies were gone, but otherwise the room was as he remembered it. His mother sat down on the couch, leaning back into it. She did not fill the silence with small talk, did not ask about his drive up from the Cities, whether he had eaten lunch along the way or gotten lost or seen anything of interest. He was thankful for this. Of all the scenarios he had imagined, the one he dreaded most was the one in which his mother spoke to him with casual familiarity.

“What about Clarence?” he asked finally.

His mother laughed. “Clary? He’s dead. He’s been gone for a good while now.”

He was not surprised to hear Clarence was dead. He had assumed he would be. “When did he die?” he asked. “How?” He did not ask his mother why she had laughed.

“You were like this as a boy,” his mother said. “So serious. Always asking questions. You never had any friends because everyone was afraid of you.”

“Afraid of me ?” he said. It was he who had always been afraid: of his father and then of his father’s death, the memory of his father somersaulting through the air and the watermelonish thwack of his head; of his mother’s illness and the constant sound of her crying; of Miss Meeks and the other children; of being left alone. He had spent his adult life dismantling these fears, but he did not say any of this to his mother. She did not deserve to know who he was, who he had become. She had given up that right.

Gloria came in and rushed toward him, chattering nervously, asking the questions about his trip that his mother had not. It was not how he remembered her. In fact, everything about her seemed different. Usually one confronted the past and it shrank down to size, but when Gloria held out her hand to shake his, it was the size of a man’s, her grip almost painful. Of course, she had been strong back then also. He recalled the way she had cracked walnuts open with her hands and then handed the flesh to his mother, shyly, while his mother talked about his father and cried. “Someday, you’ll enjoy irony,” Clarence had predicted. It was true. He had grown into a man who saw the world in terms of irony and symbol, who looked at these two women before him and thought of walnuts being squeezed together.

“I’m sorry to hear about Clarence,” he said.

Gloria nodded. “He lived longer than the doctors ever thought he would,” she said. “He fell out a window, you know.”

“That’s how he died?” Aaron said. He pictured Clarence tumbling through the air as his father had.

“Oh, no. I mean when he was a baby. Our grandfather lived with us. He used to pick Clary up and talk to him when he cried late at night, and sometimes he’d hold him out the window so the rest of us wouldn’t be bothered by his fussing. But one night he dropped Clary. He was sure the fall was what made Clary little.”