Feels Like the First Time (25 page)

I laughed my nervous laugh.

“Shawn. Turn off the car.”

I turned off the car. When I turned in my seat, Dawn had turned as well, and was tantalizingly close to me. I saw the burning intensity I remembered so well. My heart raced, and I wondered if Dawn might be able to hear my heart beating in the sudden silence.

“Dawn, I know there are a lot of things we have to figure out, and a lot of things to talk about, but I still feel so much for you. It’s never changed.”

“I know. I feel it too. But everything’s moving so fast. We need to take it slow. Everything will work out the way it’s supposed to. But for now, everything has to wait.”

I got out of the car, walked around to the other side, and opened Dawn’s door. I held her hand as we walked the few feet to her Grand Am. Everything felt so natural; the intervening years dissipated with each step. As so often happened with Dawn, I was swept up in the moment. I put my hand on her waist and pulled her toward me, kissing her gently.

“Dawn, I love you.” I cringed as soon as I said it. I didn’t want to meet Dawn’s eyes, afraid of what I might see there. I saw only kindness and understanding when I did. She smiled at me gently.

“Taking it slowly, remember?”

I nodded and kissed her once more. An incredible sense of
déjà vu
swept over me as I was instantly transported back thirty years.

“You feel exactly the same,” I said. I saw the shadow of her old smile play quickly across her lips. I looked away and sighed. I opened her door, she started the engine and left the parking lot. I stood motionless, staring after her until she was well out of sight.

I drove home filled with silent awe. I had dreamed about knowing Dawn again for so long that it felt unreal to me that I had just been with her. I couldn’t believe how easy it was to talk and laugh with her. I had even held her in my arms ever so briefly. I hadn’t slept much the night before because I was worried about our date, but adrenaline was coursing through me and I felt so high I wondered if I would ever come down.

As I had so often over the previous month, I needed to talk with my sister. She’d been dead for seven months, but I talked to her anyway.

“Terri Lee,” I said. “Wherever you are, I hope you can hear me. You had to put up with me moping over my lost love for so many years. You deserve to see how everything is turning out. I messed up and told her I loved her on our first date, but it’s gonna be okay. She already knew that. I have no idea what’s coming next or how this is going to turn out, but I feel better than I can ever remember feeling in my life.”

I talked to Terri all the way home.
 

We didn’t see each other the rest of that weekend, but we got together for a dinner date on Monday night. This time we stayed in Tumwater and ate at El Sarape. I should say we ordered food at El Sarape. We had so much to talk about that our food again went mostly uneaten.

There were so many memories and so much loss between us that we couldn’t absorb it all at once. We talked in depth about what happened when we separated and where our lives went in the immediate aftermath. We always talked about our baby. We would never be able to heal that loss, but having each other to grieve with made it easier to bear. As incongruous as it sounds, we could have a tearful conversation one moment and be laughing together a few moments later. To an outsider, we probably looked like crazy people. Maybe we were.

After dinner we walked out into the warm summer air holding hands. I felt what it was that Dawn brought to my life; a connection so organic and unforced that it could never be duplicated. I trusted her so much that I was willing to let her see me with no pretense. The more I showed her, the more I felt she accepted me and loved me.

I walked her to my car, but before I opened the door for her, I pulled her to me and kissed her gently. I looked into her eyes and was overcome by how much I felt for her. We were taking it slow, but I had to speak.

“You’re everywhere in me. You fill up my senses.”

“Really, Shawn? John Denver? What’s next? Barry Manilow?” Her deep brown eyes laughed at me as she called me out. This is the issue with loving someone who has the same frame of reference that you do. You can’t slip anything by them.

I drove the few blocks back to where Dawn had parked her car. I was committed to keeping things light and breezy after all the heaviness of our dinner conversation. I purposefully steered clear of anything important when Dawn reached out her hand and laid it on my arm to get my attention.

“Shawn, I love you.”

That got my attention. I looked at her. Without a thought, I said “I will never leave you, unless you send me away.”

“Why would I ever do that? I love you Shawn, and I want you with me.”

“I love you too, Dawn Adele, so much. We’ve both had so many losses in our lives that it’s important that you know this. Now that I know you still love me, I’ll never leave you.”

I wanted to jump out of the car, climb up on the roof and shout as loud as I could. Instead, I closed my eyes, rested my head against hers, and cried softly. I felt peace settle over my soul like I had never known.

“You are such a girl,” she said.

“And you’re such a romantic,” I said, laughing.

That was the end of taking it slow. Dawn managed to hold out for all of three days before she told me she loved me too. The first time she told me she loved me, we were laying on my Mom’s floral couch in the little trailer in Mossyrock. Then, I had felt exulted and shocked. This time I sensed the pieces of my life falling into place. Thirty years had passed, and my life had always been a jangling medley of unmatched pieces. For once, everything fit together.

My first instinct was to ask Dawn to move in with me at my big house in Enumclaw. But we both knew that would be too much too soon. Dawn told me that she had never had a place that was her own. She had gone directly from Walt and Colleen’s house to her marriage with Rick.

We spent a few weeks looking all over Centralia and Chehalis for a good place for her and Dani to live. We eventually found a duplex for them just a mile from Dawn’s old house. That meant that if Dani wanted to go back to school and graduate after she had her baby, she’d be in the same school district. By the end of July, Dawn was settled into her new place. We went about finding out what our lives would be like together.

The short answer is that life was wonderful. We still had our challenges. Money was beyond tight, and we often felt like we were being pulled in ten different directions. But every day we spent together brought peace and happiness. It felt like a never-ending slumber party. Our nights–whether spent together or talking on the phone–were filled with laughter, teasing, and a connection that constantly grew stronger.

On August 18
^th
, Dani had her baby boy, Yael. I always knew Dawn had a soft spot for babies, but Yael had her wrapped around his tiny finger from his first moment on this planet. He was a healthy, beautiful boy, and he brought so many gifts to the family. Dani had been a wild child before her pregnancy. She seemed to be heading down a difficult path. But everything changed once Yael arrived. It was amazing to witness Dani’s transformation, and it was hard to believe that someone so small could have an impact so big on so many lives.

For the rest of August, I would have driven to Tumwater or Chehalis every day just to see Dawn for a few minutes, but we both knew that wasn’t practical. We were so much like the teenagers we once were together. We just did not want to be apart.

One Sunday I spent the afternoon bothering Dawn, trying to convince her to let me come down the next day and buy her dinner. She wasn’t sure she could get out of work early. Eventually, she emailed me.

Okay. I have to work tomorrow, but I really miss you too. I can get away for two or three hours after work, but let’s skip dinner. You can figure out what I’m talking about. It’s time to make up for lost time.

Dawn

My heart stopped. Since we had gotten back together, we had shared lingering goodnight kisses and necked in my car like teenagers. Now she was promising much more. I couldn’t avoid the parallel between this email and the phone call I got from Dawn on New Year’s Eve of 1978.

Everything had felt wrong that day. I was swept up in events beyond my control. This time, I knew we had waited long enough. I emailed her back.

I’ll be there when you get off tomorrow. I’ll be easy to spot–I’ll be the one with the smile that will have to be surgically removed. Why does tomorrow seem so far away?

Shawn

That night, we weren’t the same two innocent kids we were the first time around. But in some ways we were. Being with her that night washed away three decades of pain and uncertainty. I knew they would never return.

One thing had not changed. Time was still slippery when we were together. Our three hours were over before they started, and I had to drop Dawn back off at work.

Three days later, I flew back to Arkansas to pick up my fourteen-year-old daughter Sabrina. She had gone to Arkansas with Adinah and needed a ride home. My plan was to fly into Little Rock, meet Adinah to get the car, and drive back to Washington. A 2400-mile drive might seem a little daunting, but I had made it more than two dozen times over the years.

Sabrina didn’t know I was in contact with Dawn when she left for her summer visit. I knew she would be thrilled. She and I had spent hundreds of hours together in the car, and we often amused ourselves by telling stories. Time and again, Sabrina would say, “Tell me another story about Dawn, Daddy.” I think she liked seeing the different side of me that came out when I talked about Dawn. Those stories I told Sabrina as we zipped along the interstate toward Arkansas were the origin of this book.

While she was in Arkansas, I had told her I was in contact with Dawn again. She was surprised and thrilled when I told her that Dawn and I were together. Having Dawn enter our lives was something like having a character from a book step off the page. I think Sabrina had partly believed the stories I told her were a fairy tale.

Sabrina was another perfect fit in our lives. Everything finally felt right. My house was big, but we were doing a good job of filling it up with me, Sabrina, Samy, and Millie.

On the first Saturday of September, Dawn and I decided to drive to Mossyrock. It had been years since either of us had been there, and we thought it would be fun to revisit the place where our story started. I made another mix CD to listen to while we drove with songs like
Rush Hour
by Jane Wiedlin,
What’s Up
by Four Non-Blondes, and
Kryptonite
by 3 Doors Down. Just for fun, I led off the CD with the song Adam Sandler sang to woo Drew Barrymore in
The Wedding Singer
:
Grow Old With You.

We rolled into Mossyrock holding hands just like when we were returning from our dates all those years ago. This time it was our kids who set our curfew. We drove through town, which took all of thirty seconds. Then we went for a ride on the back roads we used to travel every day before school. It was like stepping into a time machine and coming out again in 1978.

That feeling lasted until we drove down Damron Road and found our old houses. My old 1965 double-wide trailer was still there, although whoever owned it didn’t keep up the outside like my step-dad always had. When he lived there, every sidewalk was swept, the lawn was mowed like a golf course, and no weed dared to grow in his garden. Now everything looked much smaller and shabbier. I almost didn’t recognize it. Dawn’s house was almost unrecognizable too. It was remodeled and built out, so that Dawn’s old window was gone. It looked nicer, but also very different. I pulled into my old driveway and we sat for a moment. We had shared so much history on that spot that I wanted to mark it in my memory one last time.

We had to make one more stop before leaving. Just before Highway 12, I turned right and climbed the gravel road to Doss Cemetery. We cruised past the spot where I asked Dawn to marry me in November of 1978. There had been trees for me to hide behind then. Now the land was cleared and a real estate office had popped up.