Mike started his letter on the airplane. She was right, there was more to tell.

Dear Daya,

There once was a painter who fell in love with an actress. As the years went by, the painter became a digital artist, an early adopter of the marvelous tech, highly sought after by the budding gaming studios and the movie industry. Meanwhile, the actress became a flight attendant.

The cursor blinked every time Mike took his eyes away from the snow-capped Rocky Mountains and woke up his tablet. But he let the cursor sit at the beginning of the empty line for the short flight to Vancouver. For one, the mountains were pretty, for another, trying to tell Daya about his parents made him doubt his own story. After all, he composed it in his teens, and had never revised it since.

Maybe the time to revisit the past was now, to the tune of the Christmas songs. At the very least, his questions could fill in the awkward pauses between his mother and himself, instead of relying on Don to do it. 

So, the letter to Daya could wait. Should wait.

***

Vancouver greeted him with wet clumps of snow and low clouds. The driver picking him up from the airport left the windshield wipers running, while he locked Mike's suitcase in the trunk.

As bitter as the neighboring Alberta's climate was vs the coast, its boundless sky and the triple brightness of sunlight improved one's disposition.

Mike sighed, wiping his glasses. Why couldn't it ever be perfect? Warmth without gloominess? Sunshine without the frigid winter? Carol said that he'd miss the rhododendrons blooming on UBC campus in February, when Calgary was locked in the snowdrifts. Maybe he and Daya could escape to the indoor gardens together... if she returned. That was a big if.

Mike watched his hometown drift by out of the limousine's window, then the famed scenery of the Sea-to-Sky Highway to Whistler. It would have been prettier if the wilderness didn't make him feel so lonely.

***

The lodge, tucked away between the mighty trees, did little to lift his spirit, despite the porter's bright smile.

"You should try our treatment rooms," he said, visibly adjusting his stride to Mike's limping gait. Making him carry the light suitcase was an insult to the guy's snowboarding-ready physique. Mike should have asked the guy to grab the car just for the heck of it.

 "Skiing accident?" he asked Mike after propping the reception's door open with his gigantic boot... obviously, not relying on a person weakened by the big city's stress to manhandle it.

Mike scowled, reaching for the faint Italian accent his mother took on whenever she needed to up the charm at a party. "You should see the other guy."

"Hydrotherapy is the best." The guy's head bobbed after each word. The lucky sod still had every confidence in the canned answers.

"A lovely lady once told me it's the ice that does the trick." Mike pried open a blue curtain to look out of the window and hide his smile. A small skating rink occupied the plaza between the three-story spa complex and the individual cabins. A few ruffled boys dashed around it with their hockey sticks.

"Ice is good," the guy cheerfully agreed.

Meanwhile, the receptionist finished her phone call with the cheerful if there is anything else you need, please call us and cheerfully tapped his name into her computer. Apparently, he was still on the lands where the use of electronics was permitted.

"You are in cabin six, Mr. Wilson. Mr. and Mrs. Sutherland left a message for you."

She handed over a recycled-paper envelope. "Chad will show you to the cabin—"

... aha, so that's the guy's name. Wonder why he doesn't wear a name tag...

"... and Stefanie will be there in a minute to make sure you've settled in nicely."

... and to lock away my phone, no doubt...

But after Stefanie welcomed him to the traditional lands of the Squamish and Lil'wat Nations, he surrendered his devices without complaint. There was something in the unhurried way the indigenous woman moved and in the queenly way she looked at him, that made whining about being parted with video games stupid.

"If your contacts call the reception, we will immediately notify you in case of emergencies, Mr. Wilson."

Mike suppressed a chuckle at the thought of Carol rushing to the phone with the news of a hold that went missing. "Turn heavens and earth upside down if need be, but get me Wilson! He is the only one who could handle it." This place was not designed with the average worker-bees in mind.

"Otherwise," Stefanie went on, while arranging tea service, "enjoy your retreat from the hyper-accelerated rhythm of the westernized life. I suggest that you start with listening to the sounds of the fire, the forest and the snow falling for today, and try our pools and steam huts tomorrow. "

Well, you don't have to twist my arm to make me relax.

The message from his mother said they went heli-skiing and would be back by sunset. The sunset, aha. Being back for supper was not dramatic enough for Juliana Sutherland.

Mike dug up a tome on Japanese history from his suitcase and sipped his tea. It was sweetened with honey, with a hint of licorice and wild rose hips. Not strong enough to taste like medicine, but strong enough to suggest he was doing himself some good by drinking it.

The book, on the other hand... Why did he decide that it would go down easier as a shut-in? The author, peerless scholarship or not, meticulously explored every possible way to make the adventuresome Nobunaga Era dryer than a mummy in the Egyptian desert.

I would have been penning down even dryer, even more specialized articles if I completed my PhD, Mike thought. Archival laws just don't hold an appeal for the masses. It was a timely research in the era of the quickly evolving digital storage, and Mike believed in it, but he was better off with an honest day job, period.

He shifted in his chair and set the densely written pages aside. Couldn't I think about something pleasant instead?

Imagination obediently returned him to the SUV, when Daya touched his knee and looked at him with those captivating eyes. An indigo shadow always outlined them, even when she did not wear make-up. Initially, he found it haunting, then he thought of femme fatale of the silent films fame... and, finally, it became something he remembered and loved about Daya's face.

The fantasy got a toehold in the memory, and went places, dangerous places.

Mike saw himself making out in the car again, the forgotten delight for those rootless. It was not as much lovemaking, as it was the love-chasing they did as youngsters before gaining certainty in anything, the self, the surroundings, the girl.

Opportunity was all that mattered.

It was uncomfortable too, uncomfortable and inconvenient. But Daya was flexible. 

He was not.

He'd probably end up pinning her hair and get an inexplicable bruise. His leg would have stuck out of the car window flagging the airport security. The elderly white-hat volunteers would have pretended to be scandalized, but hide understanding smiles.

Mike sighed. Forcing himself to think about being caught with his pants down did nothing to shut down the reptilian part of his brain. The idea of being seen as a lover, even a comedic one, titillated. That the lady in this amorous adventure took on Daya's shape made the fantasy irresistible.

It whispered in a seductive undertone how Daya's mouth would be soft, her thighs welcoming and her tummy—yielding under his fingers.

The rational part of Mike tried to bring his mind back to the land reforms in Japan, even to his thesis... and failed miserably.  If Nobunaga raised from his grave in front of him waving the Canadian archival laws, it would have paled next to the taste of Daya's skin.

So much for playing a knight. Or maybe every knight had Lancelot in them, coveting their damsels in unchaste ways. Chivalry was dead... Poppycock. Chivalry was the proof of character cultivated through iron will and copious whoring.

Given the absence of saucy wenches on the premises, Mike settled for hydrotherapy. It was a good move. The first glimpse of himself in the swimming trunks brought him back to reality; his dreams were absurd. Sexual favors in exchange for kindness, ah, no, thanks. 

He wrapped himself into the gigantic robe with a waterproof layer nestled between the warm plush, and limped over the cedar walkways to a hot pool, steaming in the mountainous air.

The snow caught up to him from Vancouver, but in the mountains it was fluffy. Listen to the snow, eh? He slipped into the water, rolled his head back, and closed his eyes. Each snowflake made a tiny hiss when it hit the water, melting. 

He heard other couples chatting and laughing and sighed again: he missed Daya terribly... perhaps, was more in love than he'd ever imagined possible. There was nothing he could do about it, but enjoy the lazy afternoon dreams about a faraway girl with eyes shadowed in indigo.