Making pancakes at one in the morning made Violet Cromwell feel like a single woman again. Breakfast on a whim was exactly something she would have done when she lived alone in her cozy, little townhouse in Williamsburg. Smiling to herself, she scooped the thick batter into a measuring cup and poured a perfectly cylindrical cake into the butter-lined skillet. As the batter began to sizzle with a low hiss, she retrieved a small plate and eating utensils from the cabinet drawer. The drawer squeaked loudly as she closed it with her hip, and her bare feet produced a familiar creak as she pattered across the wooden floor. The house seemed quieter when she was alone, and the creaks and groans were a welcomed and reassuring companion in the three-story turn of the century house. Some people hate the upkeep and past associated with an old home, but she had to admit that she loved this place much more than the boxy one-bedroom townhouse with its whitewashed walls and cookie cutter designs.
Violet slapped the pancake on her plate, poured a glass of milk, and set out butter and syrup on the small, oak dining table in the eat-in area of her kitchen. She settled down into one of the stiff, rose-backed chairs and sipped her milk as she imagined what it would be like to be here all alone, every day, for the rest of her life. She could get a cat,and they would share TV dinners in the great room…ugh. Maybe being single was not such a grand idea after all. She needed more than a cat and a lovely, old house. Perhaps the real problem was not that she preferred being alone, but that she preferred solitude to living with Alex. She shook her head in disgust and tried to push guilty thoughts out of her mind as she stuffed a syrupy bite of pancake into her mouth. She had suddenly lost her appetite, which seemed to be happening a lot lately.
The fact of the matter was that Violet was anything but single. She had been married for only a year now, and as of two months ago, she had even acquired a boyfriend. Is that what I’m calling him now? she questioned herself. She laughed aloud as she thought about the mess she was in, nearly choking on the half chewed food in her mouth. She swallowed hard, but the laughter quickly turned to labored breathing, and she scooted her chair back, dizzily anticipating another panic attack. The panic attacks were also becoming a usual occurrence.
She took several deep breaths and tucked her knees up to her chest like she always did when she was nervous. It was a habit that began when she was a young girl—pulling her knees up to her chin and wrapping her arms around her legs in order to fit in her small wardrobe closet when her father was on a drunken rampage. She buried her face into her upper thighs and took a ragged breath. I’m not a little girl anymore, she reminded herself, and concentrated on her breathing for several more seconds until she felt her heart rate go down and her breathing steady. The panic attacks had started when Michael Sinclair entered her life and turned everything upside down. Oh, who was she kidding? Her life was a mess before he came, but Michael was the catalyst for wanting to make a change. She never should have married Alex. Her mistake hung over her like an ominous cloud, threatening to burst from within at any moment and produce a real downpour of problems.
Everything about Violet and Alex’s relationship had been rushed. They bought a house and moved in together after only two months of dating, and he proposed on their one-year anniversary. Less than three months after his proposal they were married, and only three months after that, he had taken a job that required him to work out of state for months at a time. So, she had basically been living on her own since their wedding day.
His decision to work out of town would not be so bad if she actually missed him. Being alone again made her realize how independent she really was, and all that she’d been missing for the past year and a half. All of a sudden, she had friends again, and even the movies she watched and the meals she ate were changing back to what they used to be. The day that he left to work out of town, her heart ached for the so-called “honeymoon period” they would miss, but then her life quickly resumed, and she was surprisingly content with having the house and so much time to herself.
None of her decisions were about we anymore, only me. The fact that she didn’t miss him confused the hell out of her. But what confused her even more was that he didn’t seem to mind being away from her, either. His nightly calls came less and less, and the last few times she’d called his company hotel room, he’d been “out with colleagues,” according to the receptionist. The whole purpose of taking the out-of-town position was to increase their income, but after nearly five months of working, he’d sent very little money. The one time she questioned him about the money, he’d given her an angry response about the high costs of eating out and gasoline, and then accused her of being ungrateful. Violet was not a money-hungry female, and it wasn’t like she needed his income to survive; she simply wanted an explanation as to why she’d given up her husband for this out-of-state job that seemed to be producing less than half of the income he’d made before.
When he forgot her birthday, and refused to come home for her grandmother’s funeral, she started feeling a lot of resentment and suspicion. She was usually the kind of girl that stayed at home with a good book and took a hot bath on a Saturday night, but two months ago she’d agreed to go out for drinks with some of her female colleagues, and that was the night everything changed.
After about five drinks too many, she’d decided to hail a cab and head home, but when Michael Sinclair stepped out of that cab, she somehow knew she wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
It was not her first encounter with Michael Sinclair. In fact, she knew that gorgeous face all too well. They had grown up down the street from each other for most of their childhood. However, Michael was six years older and attended an all-male, private school in a neighboring town. In the spring and summer, she would ride her bike past his large, family home peeking up at the attic window that faced the street, hoping to catch a glimpse of his raven-colored hair, emerald green eyes, and his golden tan. Occasionally, she’d see him sliding open the old window to his room and climbing out on the roof for a smoke. One time he even caught her staring and waved, causing her to hit the brakes and fly over her handlebars. Like a knight in shining armor, he glided down the sloping roof, nearly tumbling to the ground and skinning his perfectly tanned knees in the process. He rushed to her side and picked her up off the pavement. He carried her to his front wraparound porch, mysteriously darted inside, and then returned with a first-aid kit. He knelt down on the porch and very softly placed a Looney Toons Band-Aid on her scraped-up knee. If only he had known how long she’d kept that old crusty Band-Aid in her ballerina box…
After “The Rescue,” Michael Sinclair had been the muse for every dreamy fantasy she’d had as a girl. In fact, she’d relived the day of her ludicrous bike wreck a million times in her mind—only she improvised the real events of that day with cheesy alternative endings—Michael kissing her, then carrying her into his house and up the spiral, rickety staircase to an old, romantic canopied bed.
That night at the bar, seeing him step out of that cab, brought back butterflies she had long since forgotten. When he stepped out of the cab, he looked right at her, or right through her, she’d thought to herself with disappointment. She had looked away as people often do when they recognize someone they either don’t want to see or don’t feel comfortable enough to address, and she lamely started digging through her Coach purse as though she had lost something of great importance. Then she felt a touch on her elbow, and there he was, all six feet of him, staring down at her five foot self with a smile that could melt even the coldest heart.
“Violet Cromwell?”
She flashed her most confident smile, but her shyness was difficult to conceal even to a complete stranger. “Michael Sinclair,” she said with no hint of a question in her voice. “It’s good to see you. It’s been so long…” My instinctual ability to make polite, small-talk sounds extraordinarily lame, she thought. Or then again, maybe the quiver in her voice was a result of a few drinks too many and the excitement of seeing him again after all these years. She laughed nervously. “Are you here to rescue me again?” The moment felt surreal and she regretted how drunk she sounded. Perhaps he didn’t even remember “The Rescue.” His silent, questioning stare did nothing to soothe her nerves. Then suddenly he reached forward and embraced her. He smelled of Guinness.
“Violet, you are so beautiful. It must be fate that I ran into you, because I’ve never forgotten the way you looked on that unicorn bike. I wanted to kiss you that day on my porch, but you were so young and I was…stupid…and a little scared. I always hoped we’d run into each other someday, and now here you are right in front of me!”
Michael looked her up and down approvingly, and she let out a breath noisily as she finally remembered to breathe. “Me too,” she responded shyly, lowering her chin to her chest and glancing down at her feet. She fixated on an ugly crack in the pavement, her eyes following it until she noticed a scuff on his shoe. He reached out and lifted her chin slowly until she could no longer avert her eyes from his. His hand felt rough but good. And those eyes…they were as green as she remembered. Michael Sinclair was apparently one of those men that just got better with age, because the boyish features she loved so much had evolved into manly exquisiteness. His black hair was sprinkled with little flecks of gray. She couldn’t recall ever having the nerve to look this long or hard at him. Maybe she’d hit her head on the dance floor or passed out in the back of her co-worker Lisa’s Suburban and this was some sort of black-out fantasy/dream. But it wasn’t a dream—at least not the kind of dream you wake up from.
Their reunion outside the bar had spiraled into hours of conversation and even longer hours of feverish lovemaking in her canopied bed. If only we could have stayed in bed forever, she thought as she stood up and tossed the pancake in the garbage and placed her plate and fork in the sink. Instead, they had woken up to reality and, unfortunately, they were both attached to other people and had acted on impulse. However, neither regretted it, and as he gathered his keys and wallet on his way out the door that next morning, he had told her he loved her and promised to call soon. He kept good on his promise.
Violet and Michael had seen each other at least a dozen times since then, but they had not yet ventured back into bed. They’d met for lunch on several occasions, and a few times they just sat in his old truck listening to music and making out like young, high school kids in random parking lots.
To complicate things further, Michael had a fifteen-year old son named Elijah, and before his current relationship, he had also had a wife. He had full custody of his son and was in a serious relationship with a new woman who had a fourteen-year-old daughter whom he had grown seriously attached to. Recently, he and said woman had bought a house and become engaged. Violet loved him with every ounce of her body and always had. She knew she didn’t want to be alone in this big house; she wanted to be with Michael. But a relationship with Michael, a real relationship, was impossible right now because he was spoken for—not to mention her own husband and commitments.
Violet climbed the steps to the third-floor attic, which she had recently converted into an additional bedroom. The bedroom was where Dr. Middleton, the founder of her town and original owner of the house, had slept, so it felt right to use the room for more than just storage as Alex had suggested. She stripped off her thin, pink camisole and crawled under the large duvet wearing only her panties. The silky duvet felt good on her skin and reminded her of Michael’s touch. She hadn’t washed the sheets since that night, and she could still vaguely smell his cologne…or so she thought. Whether real or imagined, it smelled superb. In only one week Alex would be back for a whole month. She shuddered at the thought of facing him and sleeping next to him instead of Michael. She wondered what the hell she was going to do as she drifted off to sleep.