Headlights(68)

But these lines pulled from their context, written out alone with space around them … something doesn’t feel right. And what would it mean? That we’re talking about a “thing” and not a person? These are terrified people whose lives have been upended, who are trying to make sense of something that no one should have to make sense of.

I don’t think it’s so much what are they saying, as it is, why did it scare Hannah?

Or was it something else?





2



We drive down the mountain in James’s Bronco and park at the edge of a public green space. Wide perfect stretches of grass, lush trees. And this park, this place I have never seen before, fills me with a kind of dread I can’t understand.

Dizziness, nausea.

Rose. My mom, in a pink dress.

On the path in front of me.

Rose.

I see her.

Plain as day, in this memory.

Here.

No. That’s not possible. We never—

“We can catch the trail through there,” Hannah says.

My heart, thundering.

The drive into Aspen from Denver, feeling like I’d done it before. But I know I haven’t. Right? Passing that old pharmacy and the entrance to this park. That overwhelming sense of déjà vu. Is it just being here with Hannah? Is it just the fact that I am somehow implicated in this case? That I can’t seem to get my bearings at all?

I move in a daze, behind Hannah. She’s now wearing running tights, an oversized faded purple PROTECT OUR PARKS hoodie, and a fleece headband, all of which I can only assume are hers, clothes left at the house. Her hair in a ponytail again. A pair of beat-up running shoes.

Hannah, walking before me.

Time, glitching, shaking.

Rose, Mom, walking before me.

I blink.

Ahead of Hannah, a sign that—

I don’t know if I want to laugh or cry.

But of course I knew it was here. That there would be something here. Something to commemorate him. I should have expected it.

JOHN DENVER SANCTUARY.

Still …

I follow Hannah through an unthinkably beautiful garden, boulders with plants, flowers, trees. So dizzy. Ears ringing. My palms sweating.

That glitch. Seconds, half seconds. A past version.

Rose, in a pink dress, walking in front of me. Here.

Hannah. Now.

I blink, shake it off.

Grass so green and soft looking it almost seems fake. On some of the large stones, nearly as tall as I am, are lyrics. “The Eagle and the Hawk,” “Perhaps Love,” “Sunshine on My Shoulders.” I follow Hannah through them, and when I see the last one by the water, the river, The river I have been seeing and remembering— “Rocky Mountain High.”

Glitch. I’m—

Leave your shoes on the rock, Danny, come sit in the river with me.

Mom in her pink dress, beside the big stone with the lyrics. I can only read some of it, but she said it’s “Rocky Mountain High.”

I’ve been here before.

This is it. She—

We leave our shoes on the grass and take the small path down to the water. It’s cold on my feet. I laugh. Mom is headed for the big rock in the middle, sets the picnic basket down and turns back to take my hand— I blink, can barely breathe. A shadow in the river. Near the rock.

I try to catch my breath, to stop the nausea. I turn to where Hannah is.

Was. To where Hannah should be.

She’s gone. Hannah is …

Fuck. I was caught in that memory, and now she’s gotten away.

Panic. Have to think. I think if I go left, that’s where she’ll be. Right? Fuck, I don’t know. I don’t have time. I push my body to move. How fucking stupid can I be? The river— I swear, go. My feet pound on the dirt path, catching the Rio Grande Trail across a wooden bridge that goes over the river, onto the paved part. I don’t see her.

I run faster. She couldn’t have taken the car. I have the keys. She had to have gone this way. I think. I move, push, my lungs burning in the cold. It’s a lot colder here than in Denver, higher up. Running feels different, harder. I take a turn, through the trees, through a path that in any other circumstance I would probably marvel at the beauty of, surrounded by towering pines and golden aspen trees. And there, just at the edge of my field of vision, at the farthest visible point on the path, I see her, running up ahead.

I sprint. Thank my fellow reservists for kicking my ass and keeping me in shape all these years. Hannah’s fast, crazy fast. I don’t know how long I was standing by the river back there, but it wasn’t long. At least I don’t think it was. I can’t think about that. The river, the memory. That strange smell, and my mom and— I see Hannah now, closer.

The river—wide and flowing—runs on our left now, an upward sloping rock face on our right. She’d said something on the drive down about running to get food, that there would be a place. I push my pace until I’m nearly even with her.

She looks back, and at first I think the look on her face is fear. But when she does it again … I think she’s smiling, a little.

I lean forward and catch up to her, come around on her left.

Our shoulders nearly brush as she surges forward again, pushes ahead of me. Trees fly by. She weaves in and out of a couple hiking with their dog, bikes speeding around us, Hannah dodging all of them. I weave through them a moment later, push my legs. My muscles are burning. I ran far last night, I don’t know how many miles, but with the cold and the altitude, and pushing my pace faster than I ever do, I feel it. Hannah ran or walked twentysomething miles to Whileago Manor. And now this. She said she hasn’t eaten. I know she hasn’t slept.