What Comes After by Caren Hahn

Author:Caren Hahn [Hahn, Caren]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Seventy-Second Press
Published: 2022-10-24T16:00:00+00:00

Fourteen

The Rimrock Country Club sits on an expansive green below the iconic Rimrock Bluffs in northern Billings. The sandstone cliffs are impressive at this distance, the afternoon light catching hints of ochre and crimson. It’s been years since I’ve set foot here, yet now it feels like I’ve been transported back twenty years earlier to those summer days as a college student earning money for the next semester’s tuition. Emotions wash over me as if it were yesterday. Excitement about life but afraid of it at the same time. A desire to be more than I was but keenly aware of my youth and inexperience. Thrilled about the possibilities of a life ahead of me.

How much shorter that life turned out to be.

The car brings us to the third green where a grounds worker is driving an aerification tractor in neat rows across the wide expanse of sod. Carl—my supervisor from more than twenty years ago—stands close by, gesturing widely as he converses with a young man dressed in jeans and a work shirt with the new RCC logo. Carl is substantially grayer now, his tidy beard sporting a generous sprinkling of white.

We waste no time with the grounds crew, moving instead toward the back of the newly renovated clubhouse. Well, it was newly renovated when I was alive, but that would be five years ago now. I coordinated the grand reopening, complete with formal dinner and a live band, as well as a special wall honoring significant donors with their names etched in glass.

We mount the stairs to the “fishbowl,” a large circular room with floor to ceiling windows that offer a view of the green.

“Gravity works on us then, I guess?” Jackie says as she climbs the steps.

“I don’t understand it either,” I admit. “Apparently there are some laws of physics that apply when we’re in this world. Or at least, echoes of them. You can even sit in a chair without passing through it, but I don’t know if the chair is actually supporting you or if it’s just your imagination copying the motion of sitting.”

We pass through the clubhouse—literally pass right through the ten foot windows—with its dining room laid out for the dinner hour. Beyond that is a lounge with a large stone fireplace and shining tile floors. We ignore the handful of occupants there and make our way out the front door to the parking lot.

Only a few cars sit there, which is typical for a Tuesday afternoon. None of them are a dark Ford F-150 with a topper.

“Well, I guess it was a long shot.”

“So now what?” Jackie asks.

“We could wait. But I’m not sure it would help. Things really pick up on the weekend. If we want to find his truck here, that’ll probably be the best time to come back.”

Jackie’s face falls.

“I’m interested in checking out this Trevor guy in your yearbook class,” Reif says. “Should we go to your school? We can always check back here later.”

“Sure, I guess,” Jackie says, but it’s clear she’s disappointed.

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