He smiles and walks to the fridge. “That was nice of her.” He begins searching through drawers for a magnet to secure his prize to the front of our stainless-steel fridge. I roll my eyes as I watch him add a piece of garbage to the refrigerator.
“What are you going to do today?” I change the subject. I’m just going to let this one go, and by this one, I mean his mother. I pick up the cup of coffee and bring it to my lips. It burns, but a good type of burn, like the small fires we sometimes need in our lives to remind us that we are alive.
“Well, now that I have nothing but time on my hands…” he says with a chuckle while looking at his new watch. I let out a small, polite laugh for his terrible joke. “I’ll probably head up to the lake house and get some writing done. Daniel needs more pages before he can pitch the book.”
I nod and take another sip. “The last ones you sent were wonderful. Your agent is going to love them. Make sure you send me your newest ones.”
“Do you mean that?” He skeptically raises an eyebrow.
“I mean everything I say… especially, about you.” I wink.
He sets his cup of coffee down and closes the distance between us, standing behind me with each hand on the countertop. He nuzzles and kisses my neck while pressing his pelvis into my butt. I giggle like a schoolgirl.
“Come tomorrow. Just for the day.”
“I’m going to try, even if I can just spend a few hours with you.”
“Do more than try. We’ve had the lake house for over a year, and you haven’t spent more than a night up there.”
“I said I’ll try.” I take another sip of my coffee.
He groans into my neck. “Please.”
“I’ll do everything in my power to be there tomorrow, and you and I can finally christen that lake house.” I playfully back into him. He pulls me in tight and kisses my neck.
“Now that is a plan I can get behind.” Adam turns me around to face him and runs his hands all over my body.
“Thank you for being patient with me.” I raise my chin so our eyes can meet, giving him my most bashful puppy-dog eyes to convey as much sincerity as I mean to express with my words. His eyes lock with mine.
“I’d wait a lifetime for you and then some.” He kisses my forehead, the tip of my nose, and then my lips. “Or at least another 5,256,000 minutes…” He smirks. “Now, hurry to work so you can hurry to me.” He playfully pats my butt as if I was running into a football game.
I pick up my bag and start toward the door. I tell him I love him.
“Love you more,” he says.
2
Adam Morgan
My fingers tap against the keyboard a few more times just as the sun is leaving its final stretch of light on this side of the world for the day. A breeze rustles the trees, shaking them of their fall-colored leaves, while laps of lake water gently lick the shore. I save the work I’ve done for the day and close my laptop—three thousand words will have to do. I toss my black-rimmed reading glasses onto the desk and run my hands through my ash-brown hair, pushing it off my forehead. I rub my temples a bit to alleviate a lingering tension headache and let out a deep sigh. As I stretch my arms out and roll my neck, a black squirrel darting across the yard catches my eye. It’s not as if I haven’t seen a black squirrel before, but it’s a rare sight, and demands to be watched and noticed. I stare out of the large window behind my desk as the creature bounces from place to place, searching for food, complete in its sense of purpose and direction.
The lake house is an hour away from our home outside D.C. and it might as well be on a new planet. It’s a verdant land that our forefathers would actually recognize, unlike the concrete and horn-blasted monstrosity that plays the part of our nation’s capital. The house is far enough from the city to ensure no unexpected visitors but close enough for me to travel to whenever I need to be alone—or not alone, for that matter.
A secluded cabin on Lake Manassas surrounded by woods in Prince William County, Virginia, was just what my writing career needed, or at least that’s how I sold the idea to Sarah. I had struggled to get the words out up until just over a year ago when we purchased this second home. It opened another world for me, a world in which I could write, a world full of obtainable desires, a world I could live in without feeling the constant pressure that I wasn’t good enough. The natural beauty of the environment around me could be reflected into my work, and in this world I felt reborn.
Hardwood features so heavily in the make-up of our lake house that it feels like you’ve climbed inside a tree, rather than a human dwelling. The wide-open living area has large bay windows overlooking the lake and a massive fireplace adorned with various colored stones. A huge bearskin rug completes the sitting area and serves as a central point that separates it from the kitchen.
Forest-green marbled granite covers both the kitchen island and the countertops, and above and below are pine cabinets that have been stained to a rich almost caramel colored wood. Just off the sitting area, less than ten feet from the fireplace, over by the bay windows, sits my desk. This allows me the perfect view of all that nature has to offer in this neck of the woods and gives me the freedom of not feeling trapped in some small office.
It didn’t take much to convince Sarah that we should purchase this home away from home. I think she could sense that I was drifting away—mentally, emotionally… or maybe she just wanted to show me that she could buy it. To remind me, once again, of her fiscal hold over me, wielding it as a show of power. Whatever the reason may be, I still got the house, so who fucking cares.
It was supposed to be our home away from home but turns out it’s just my home. I’ve lost count of the number of times Sarah promised she’d come with me for a weekend but later canceled. This weekend was no exception, even on our tenth anniversary. I had hoped she’d make it down just for the day, but she phoned earlier telling me she had to go into the office once again. She also told me she loved me. She always tells me she loves me. I hold my wrist out, admiring my new watch. It’s beyond expensive. Despite the cost, it was still a thoughtful gift. That’s Sarah for you. She is thoughtful, even if she’s never around.
I’ve always felt like Sarah was taking on the world, while I was just struggling to live in it. That’s the woman she wanted to be, a powerhouse, a one-woman show where I just happen to be cast as an extra. It wasn’t always like that. We met while I was in my third year of undergrad at Duke and she in her first. She was studying political science, while I was studying literature. Back then, we both dreamed of greatness. Sarah wanted to be a successful lawyer, and I wanted to go down as one of the truly great writers of our generation. Fifteen years later, one of us is still waiting.
Well, I suppose success flickered for me, for a moment, and went away just as quickly, and has yet to come back again. That’s the funny thing about dreams. You always eventually wake up from them. My first book was a success, not from a mainstream or commercial standpoint, but from a literary perspective. One critic even called me, “The next David Foster Wallace,” which I liked. The book has a nice cult following to this day, and I thought I’d duplicate that success, but books two and three have flopped by all standards, literary included. I’m surprised my agent has kept me on, and I’m sure if the book I’m working on isn’t a success, I’ll be getting the ax soon enough.