They sank into a companionable silence as they listened to a Jack FM station dedicated to playing a random mix of music from the 90s to the current decade. Dawn tried to posit a few more guesses about what his surprise might be, but she didn’t get anywhere close.
Which made it even better when she saw their destination.
“Oh, my God….” Dawn clapped her hands together, and her entire face lit up with wonder when she saw all of the cherry blossom trees surrounding Washington DC’s famous Tidal Basin. “It’s cherry blossom season! Just like in Japan!”
Deflecting all of her questions…the long drive…taking the chance that he’d be at least seven hours out-of-pocket if Kuang decided to ask for one of his last-second meetings...
The look on her face alone made it all worth it.
It was a bit of a line to get into the parking lot along Maine Drive. And he barely got the car stopped before she jumped out and ran toward the trees.
This was something else he’d forgotten about her. Her unabashed enthusiasm for all the things she thought were beautiful. Like anime. Cherry blossom trees. And him.
He caught up with her at the top of the trailhead path after he finished paying for parking.
“It’s so beautiful!” she called out to him. “I can’t believe you brought me here!”
He couldn’t believe he’d brought her here either. It was one thing to run Operation Good as New 2.0 back in Rhode Island. It was another to do something like this. Something that reminded him of the fool he used to be. Specifically when it came to her.
It was raining now. Cherry blossoms, not droplets of water. The petals floated down, catching in Dawn’s braids.
She was so beautiful. He stopped in his footsteps, then feet away, because suddenly it hurt to look at her.
The cherry blossoms showering down on her were delicate and fragile. Yet, they could only grow after a winter’s frost. In Japan, the pretty pink petals served as a symbol of many powerful things: life-and-death, beauty and violence, and the ephemeral-yet-cyclical nature of all four.
His relationship with Dawn was like these cherry blossoms. It had come around once again after a cold winter. But it would soon be over in just a matter of weeks. It would disappear just like the cherry blossoms. This…whatever this was…would be done on May 25th when they’d both go their separate ways. Her to an animation job in Pittsburgh. Him to a loveless marriage.
He hadn’t minded that his marriage to Nora Kuang would be little more than a business matter before these two months. But now….
“I know, it’s overwhelming, right?” she said, coming back to where he stood frozen. Her voice was soft and quiet as she took him by the hand and guided him north on the Tidal Basin’s looped trail path. “I feel the same way I did in Japan.”
Japan was fifteen years ago. Yet, the memory of when they’d gone to the Ueno Park Cherry Blossom Festival in Tokyo hit him as if it had just happened yesterday.
“I don’t know whether to stare at everyone and everything or draw everyone and everything!” she’d lamented with a ridiculous, tragic tone and an overdramatic sigh. “This is so hard for me!”
“Or,” he’d signed. “You could just enjoy the festival with me. Be here with me.”
How pleased he’d been when she chose him, laying her head on his arms as they walked through the park.
He didn’t offer her that option this time, but he didn’t have to. That was simply what they did. They visited several national memorials on the way to the Japanese Lantern Festival, where they ate street food and enjoyed performances. The food didn’t taste the same, and the performances were nothing like the ones in Ueno Park.
Still, it took him back to a time when he and Dawn were happy together. When he knew with certainty that he wanted nothing more in life than to be with her forever.
“Do you want to dance too?” she asked when a bunch of Western kids and their parents started twirling along to the Japanese classical folk band closing out the night’s festivities.
“I don’t dance,” he answered.
“Why not?” she asked, the look on her face both baffled and taken aback.
“I don’t know how,” he admitted.
“Oh, it’s easy. Especially the slow kind. It’s like a swaying hug.”
A swaying hug.
No, they weren’t kids anymore. But when she looped her arms around his waist, he swaying hugged her back. He’d gotten good at hugs when they were in Japan, and an old urge came over him.
He cupped the back of her head and pressed it into his chest. Holding her close. As close as two people could get while hug dancing.
And when it came time to leave, he took her by the hand as he had in Tokyo, not letting go until they reached the car.
This trip…this night…it had been a terrible idea. It was blurring the lines between the present and the past.
But he couldn’t bring himself to regret it, even though they had no future.
28
They finally made it to the Four Seasons.
Dawn gasped when he pulled up in front of the D.C. version of the hotel. And kept giggling all the way from dropping the keys off with the valet to checking in at the front desk.
She ooohed and awwed over the view of historic Georgetown in their capital suite. And she dropped several “oh my God” s when he presented her with the trip outfits he’d had a Boston-based personal shopper pick out for her that morning.
“Why are you doing all of this for me?” she asked, her face softening when she saw the yellow cocktail dress she’d be wearing down to dinner.
He knew what she meant. And inside his head, he answered, Because I only have a few weeks left with you. And I want us—you especially—to enjoy them.
But outside of his head, he merely signed, “You needed something other than jeans to wear to dinner.”
After freshening up in their room, they both changed into nicer clothes. He’d forgotten her toiletries bag, which had all of her makeup. But she still looked stunning in the yellow dress. It complemented her tawny brown skin and hugged her curves in a way that made his mouth water for something more than the meal they would enjoy downstairs.
This was why a couple of their anniversaries hadn’t included food.
Luckily for Dawn, he managed to keep his hands off of her, and they were able to make it downstairs for their reservation.
“Thank you!” Dawn said, signing in CSL over their late dinner at The Bourbon Steak, The Four Season D.C.’s signature restaurant. “Thank you for bringing me here. Thank you for this amazing night.”
He was more pleased than he should’ve been that she was once again attempting his native sign language. “You’re welcome,” he signed back, also in CSL.
“You should wear that dress for your thesis presentation,” he suggested after they gave the waiter their dessert orders.
She looked down at herself then back up at him. “You think so? I was planning to wear my Aggretsuko tee shirt with a denim skirt or something. This is a little fancy for a presentation, but I suppose I could dress it down with my pink cardigan.”
She peeped across the table at him with a sheepish grin. “Maybe it’s time for me to start dressing like a grown-up. And I kind of like the idea of wearing something just for you.”