After the Parade by Lori Ostlund

was so worn because all day long other children did as he was doing, walked back and forth while their mothers looked on. His mother and the saleswoman took turns pressing on the toes. “I guess we’ll take them,” his mother said, sighing as she got to her feet, and he could tell then that she did not think the cheap dress shoes were nice either.
    â€œI like them,” he declared.
    They moved to the counter, where the saleswoman wound a length of string around the shoebox while chatting about the weather. His mother stood writing a check, her lips moving as though she were dictating the information to her hand. In the past, she had been able to carry on a conversation while writing checks, but lately most tasks required her full concentration so that even when she did get out of bed to make supper, for example, she no longer invited him to cook withher, did not show him how to measure salt in the palm of his hand or check the temperature of the roast.
    â€œLooks like we’ll have a lot of rhubarb this year,” the saleswoman said.
    â€œI used to make rhubarb crisp,” his mother told the woman as she handed her the check.
    â€œI love crisp,” the woman replied. “May I see your driver’s license?”
    His mother fumbled with her purse. “Of course, that was before the parade,” she said, handing the woman her license.
    The woman began copying information onto the check. “The parade?”
    Aaron looked at his mother. Large, evenly spaced tears rolled down her cheeks, what she called “crocodile tears” when he produced them. Once, she had pretended to catch his crocodile tears with a needle and thread, stringing them into a necklace. She had done it to make him laugh, but his mother no longer seemed to be thinking about his laughter.
    â€œYes, the parade,” his mother said.
    He backed away, feigning interest in a pair of Hush Puppies.
    â€œI’m afraid I don’t know what parade you’re talking about, dear,” the saleswoman said. She returned his mother’s license and pivoted toward the cash register.
    â€œThe parade,” his mother screamed. The woman jerked back around. “The parade,” she said again, this time with quiet authority. “Don’t you know anything?” She shook her head as though she pitied the woman and then rested it on the counter, atop the nest that she’d made of her arms.
    Everything that happened next would remain in Aaron’s memory as a set of images and sounds, devoid of chronology. He knew that the saleswoman had called to him repeatedly, “Young man, there’s something wrong with your mother,” and that he had stood with his back to them, focusing on the gumball machine by the door. He recalled the feel of his hands dipping repeatedly into his pockets, the way they seemed separate from him, not his own hands at all, and the things he told himself as he turned the metal crank of the machine, things like“If it’s blue, she’ll stop crying and we’ll go home.” He remembered the whirring as the saleswoman dialed the telephone and what she said first: “I’m calling to request medical assistance.” She said other things, but those things he did not remember because nothing had impressed him like that first sentence.
    By the time the ambulance arrived, his pockets were empty, his dead-father pennies converted into bubblegum, which had formed a wad in his mouth the size of a Ping-Pong ball. “What’s your name, son?” one of the paramedics asked. Aaron stared up at the man, cheeks puffed out, lips pulled back menacingly. His jaw had gone numb, so he did not know that he was drooling, his spittle tinged green and pink and blue. With his pockets empty, he felt as though he might float away, so he stood very still, watching as they strapped his mother to a gurney and wheeled her to the ambulance and as the saleswoman ran after them