by Vivian Ward
After I had dropped Andrew off at daycare, I headed over to the fire station to meet up with Matt. I was surprised that he was up and ready to go at 8 AM, but I had seen stranger things. Not only was he ready, but he looked good. His hair was neatly combed, and he had on a nice pair of khaki pants with a polo shirt and was wearing a pair of smooth boots.
“Well, don’t you look nice?” I teased him.
“Are you saying that I normally look like a bum?” he joked. “I want this to be special. Come on,” he placed his hand on my back, ushering me out the door, “I want to show you something that will shock you.”
“Shock me, huh?” I asked, climbing into his truck.
“Yes, ma’am. Sit back and prepare to be amazed.”
I kept wondering what he was up to. The whole time we were in the truck, he kept looking over at me out of the corner of his eye, grinning every so often. I knew it would be pointless to ask him what he was up to because he wouldn’t tell me, but I also knew he was really good at surprises, so I wasn’t worried too much. I played along with his little game, whatever it took to make him happy.
It wasn’t until we got near the private school that I started getting nervous. He said that we were going to look at houses, but we were close to the apartments that I had been rejected from. Suddenly, I remembered them having townhouses that you could rent, and the rent on those was substantially higher than the rent amount of the regular apartments.
“Where are we going?” I asked, placing my hands on the seat and door, bracing myself for his answer.
“Relax,” he laughed. “I told you, I have a surprise to show you. A special house.”
“What house? Where’s it at?”
“Would you chill out? What’s gotten into you?”
“You’re not taking me back to those apartments to rent a townhouse are you?”
“Stephanie, last night we talked about buying a house, not renting anything. We can’t live there; you know that but we are almost to where I’m taking you.”
There it was, that cheesy grin. The one that said, “I’m up to something, and you don’t know what it is.” As long as he wasn’t taking me back to the apartments, I didn’t care where we went. As we pulled onto a side street, the truck started to slow, and I saw a “For Sale” sign in the yard.
“Is this it? The house that you wanted to show me?” I asked.
Looking at it, I decided that it was a cute little house. It had newer beige siding on it, with large brown stones around the foundation of the house, giving it a textured rock-like appearance. The yard was nicely landscaped and overall, I would say that the property was well kept. It was an older house, but it looked like it had a lot of updates, including new windows.
“Do you like it?” he asked, shutting off the truck as we parked in front of it.
“Yeah, it looks like a nice little house. I like the front porch; we could set a small table or a bench on it.” As we walked closer to the house, it dawned on me that there was no real estate agent to show us the inside of the house. “How are we supposed to see the insides? Just look through the windows?”
“You could do that,” he grinned, digging into his pocket, “or I can give you your key.” He held out a key chain that read, “Home Sweet Home” that had a picture of a house with a single gold key dangling from it.
“What?” I couldn’t believe my eyes. Was that my house key? To this house? “Is that—I mean, did you? What did you do?”
He walked towards me, scooped me up and carried me to the front door. “Welcome home, Stephanie. This is our new house!”
I threw my arms around his neck and kissed him as we passed over the threshold. It suddenly made sense to me why he had been so busy and didn’t have a lot of time for me lately. All this time I thought it was his job because of his new promotion, but it was because he was busy looking for us a house to live in. “When did you do this?” I asked, wiping the corners of my eyes.
“I started house hunting after the apartment complex turned us down. I knew how much you needed to get out of Susan’s house, and I was ready to start living the rest of my life with you.”
The Lord blessed me with the sweetest man on Earth, which made me question myself. Why was I suddenly feeling so guilty? I had finally gotten what I wanted. I had a man who loved me, a home, and God rewarded me with a precious son, but I felt empty. It was at that moment that I realized I was missing my family. We had become so alienated from one another.
I had always imagined my parents celebrating with me when I became a homeowner and found the perfect man, and had envisioned my brother helping me move into a new house, sticking around for a barbecue or a cookout but none of those things were going to happen. If anything, moving into a house with Matt was going to push my family further away.
“Matt,” I started to cry as a wealth of emotions swept over me. I felt happiness, sadness, guilt and excitement. “I love you.”
“What’s wrong?” he held me close, stroking my hair. “Those don’t seem like tears of happiness. Talk to me, baby.”
“I’m so lucky to have you and very blessed to have a house, but I don’t have my family. I miss talking to them like I used to and seeing them.”
“You know I’m here for you, baby. We’ll get through this together,” he pulled me to his chest, wrapping his big arms around me. “I’ll make sure of it.”
Chapter 28
Matt
There’s nothing I hate more than seeing her upset. I can’t help but feel that it’s my fault for things being the way they are so I decided to take matters into my hands. There was no way that I was going to be able to talk to her family, but I knew someone who could—and would—help me get things back on track for her because having her back in my life wasn’t doing me any good if she wasn’t happy.
I stopped by Susan’s house after a long, busy shift at the fire department. I knocked on her screen door, hoping that she would be willing to help. Even though Stephanie had overstayed her welcome, the two of them were still best friends, and I couldn’t imagine Susan turning me down.
“Matt?” she said as she approached the door. “What are you doing here? I don’t think she left anything behind.”
“I was hoping that we could talk. Do you have a minute?”
“Yes, come on in,” she opened the screen door and invited me inside. “Would you like some tea?”
“No, thanks. I was wondering if you could help me with something.”
“Like what?” she sat across from me. I had never realized how much older she was than Stephanie. She had silver strands of hair coming in right along her front hairline, and her eyes were starting to show signs of crow’s feet.
“Susan, I know that you run the women’s support group meetings down at the church and that you and Stephanie are the best of friends, right?”
“True.”
“She’s not happy right now, and I’m sure you’re probably already aware of this,” she began nodding. “She wants her family back in her life, but as long as I’m around, they’ll have no part of that.”
“So what do you want me to do?” she sipped her tea. “I don’t know why you would come to me.”
“You’re good at talking people through their problems, and you know Stephanie and her family better than anyone else I know. Could you sit them all down and talk some sense into them?”
“Oh, Matt,” she sucked in a deep breath. “I don’t know about that. Do you have any idea what you’re asking me to do?”
“I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t love her. This is something that is so important to her. I thought that maybe you could invite them all to church one evening—you know, it would be a common ground where nobody would feel threatened—and we could all sit around the table and talk there. You could lure them down there under some other pretense.” She looked at me like I was crazy. “Please?”
She sat tall in her chair and sighed. “Well,” she began, crossing her legs. “Stephanie is one of my closest
friends, and I would do anything for her—including this. It will take me a couple of days, but I think I can manage it. Give me your number and I’ll call you with the day and time.”
“Thank you, Susan,” I kissed her hand. “I can never repay you for this.”
“You can say that again,” she rolled her eyes.
I scribbled down my cell phone number and headed home for a hot shower and some good sleep. It seemed like lately, everyone and their brother was burning down their house or blowing something up. The best part of coming home at the end of a long shift was sleeping next to Stephanie and seeing Andrew off to school.
As promised, Susan sent me a text two days later instructing me to meet her, and the rest of Stephanie’s family, at the church that evening at 6:00. I hated lying to her, but the only way that I could get her to the church and talk her into leaving Andrew with a sitter was by telling her that we were going on a romantic date. She began to figure it out once she realized where we were headed.
“Are we going to church?” she asked as I got in the turn lane.
“Mmhhm,” I answered.
“Why? I thought you said we were going on a date? What are you doing?”
“Okay, I have to level with you. I talked to Susan, and she agreed to get your entire family here so we can all talk this through.”
“Matt, I can’t believe that—” I put my finger on her lip.
“Shhh. You’re my girl, and I want you to be happy. Now we both know that’s never going to happen if we don’t get this family thing squashed once and for all. I can handle them, but I can’t handle seeing you sad all the time.”
I looked around to see if I saw any of her family members as we pulled into a parking space. I was semi-relieved when I didn’t see them, but I saw their cars. They were already inside waiting for us. I looked over at Stephanie, who was stiff as a board.
“It’ll be okay,” I nudged her. “I’m right here by your side, and we’re going to get through this—together.”
The church doors snapped shut behind us, and there was no turning back. An annoying buzzing sound from one of the flickering lights filled the hall as we made our way to the women’s support group room where Susan said to meet her. I looked over at Stephanie, who looked like she had seen a ghost.
“We’ve got this. Don’t worry,” I kissed her cheek before we walked into the room.
Her parents and brother were gathered around a rectangular wooden table with Susan sitting at the head of the table. As soon as we walked in, their facial expressions turned from conversational to angry. Her dad stood up at the same time as her brother.
“I know we didn’t come here for him!” Lance shouted.
“Sit down, please,” Susan asked them.
Stephanie turned around and began to bolt out the door, I grabbed her arm, preventing her from leaving. “Come on, babe. Sit down.”
“You don’t tell my sister what to do!” Lance got in my face. “I’ve about had it with you.”
“Son, sit down,” Stephanie’s dad, Vincent, spoke up.
It had been ages since I had seen him but he still looked the same. He was about 5’7” with a bald head, wrinkled skin and was still wearing the same pair of suspenders to hold his pants up that he used to wear when Stephanie and I had first started dating years ago. It felt nice seeing him, and it brought back some of the old memories I had of us working together, repairing lawn mowers.
I looked over at her mom who was sitting quietly; that was Kim for you. She never had much to say, never really had her opinion about things and minded her own business. She always spent most of her time making candles for her little shop that she had on Poplar Avenue. I remember carrying boxes of candles into her shop after she made them at home. I’ll never know how she packed them so heavy as tiny as she was.
Lance bowed up to me, puffing his chest out before he finally sat back down at his dad’s request. Susan inhaled deeply before letting out a sigh of relief. “Okay, let’s get this started,” she said.
“I’d like to hear what you have to say, Matt,” her dad started. “It takes balls—excuse my language—” he looked around at the ladies, “for someone in your position to ask us all together. Tell me, boy: Why did you do it?”
“I didn’t do it. I would never do that to Stephanie, or to your family. Vincent,” I leaned forward, resting my arms on the table as I closed a gap in the distance between us, “I tried telling you years ago that I didn’t do it. My dad was listening in on my conversation when I was telling Stephanie where to ditch all of the evidence. He saw an opportunity for an early retirement by ‘finding’ evidence from such a high-profile assault in the community. Everyone in the neighborhood was terrified and—”
“Yes,” he gave Lance the side eye, “I never said my boy was an angel. He has certainly done plenty of wrong in his days.”
“Vincent, Kim,” I looked at her brother, “and Lance, I would never do anything to tear your family apart. Ever. That’s the whole reason we’re here today. I can’t go on watching Stephanie be unhappy because you’ve limited your contact with her because of me. I want her happy. I know that I cut my family out of my life years ago because it was the right thing to do, but I can’t let the same happen to her. It would be wrong for her to do it.”
“You cut your own parents out of your life?” Kim spoke up. Stephanie’s mom was a very family-oriented person. “How could you do that?”
“It about killed me to lose the one thing I loved more than life itself. How could I not do it? They caused me so much pain, your family so much pain.” I looked at Stephanie, “I have always loved her, even when I shouldn’t. It’s not something I could ever turn off. Loving her just became part of who I was, and still am to this day.”
Chapter 29
Stephanie
I almost cried when I heard Matt say those words. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard. Was there nothing that terrified this man? He had rushed into a burning building to save Andrew and me, fist fought with my brother and my ex, and now we were sitting around the table with my family while he professed his love for me while he defended our relationship.
“I know that you might not want to hear this, but Matt didn’t snitch on Lance. He’s telling the truth,” I looked at my brother. “And Lance? He has treated me much better than your boy ever did. He’s never mistreated me, jacked up my credit or made me feel like I was worthless, and he treats Andrew as if he were his own.”
“From what I’ve seen over the course of the last year, they make each other happy, and he is very good to them,” Susan spoke up. “Do the three of you think you can find it in your hearts to forgive him?”
My parents looked at each other, then looked at my brother. Lance’s emotions were plastered across his face. It was obvious to see that he was confused, hurt and sad. I wished I could take it all away from him and show him what Matt is really like. If they even knew half of Matt’s story, they would know that he’s not the bad guy they’ve always thought he was.
“Well,” Lance cleared his throat. “I do know that Stephanie has a point. I’ve not seen her this happy in a very long time.” I couldn’t believe how much his demeanor had changed since we first walked into this room almost an hour ago.
“I agree with that,” my dad stepped in. “Stephanie, if you believe him and was willing to go through all of this, then I accept the fact that we were wrong, and Matt?” He looked over at him. “I think we owe you an apology, boy.”
I watched the most amazing thing happen when my dad and Matt stood up, grabbed each other’s hands and embraced one another as they patted each other on the back. Much to my surprise, Lance followed suit and joined them.
“Hey man, I’m sorry. I know you’ve always been there for her, and you’re really good with my nephew. Thank you for bringing us all together today. I appreciate it,” my brother said.
“No problem,” Matt said, shaking his hand. “I’ll take care of her until the day I die if she lets
me.”
“Why don’t we all go out to dinner someplace?” Susan interrupted. “You all aren’t the easiest bunch to convince, and I’m starved. We’ve been here for almost two hours.”
“It’ll be my treat. Where does everyone want to go?” Matt asked. “We can stop and pick up Andrew along the way.”
“I think he’d like seeing all of his together. He loves all of us so much, and I know it’s been hard for him, too,” I said.
Kyle had agreed to watch Andrew for me so that Matt and I could go out, so we stopped by his house to pick him up. While we were at the Bass Pro restaurant in the Pyramid, he just gloated over the fact that he got to eat dinner with all of his favorite people. I hadn’t seen him smile that big ever.
“Do you like us all eating dinner together, Drew?” I asked him.
“Uh-huh,” he shook his head yes. “You like us eating together.”
“Stephanie, you better talk to that school about him saying things backwards. He does that a lot,” my mom said, cutting through her steak.
“They’re working on it. His teacher said that he probably just gets things confused and that it should improve over time. Hopefully, when he gets to kindergarten, he’ll start outgrowing it.”
“Matt,” my dad started, looking over at my brother. “I’d like to apologize on behalf of our family. We should have all known that you never told on Lance. If he wouldn’t have been such a fool when he was younger, none of this would have ever happened.”
“We can’t make up for lost time,” Matt began, “but we can all move forward. I understand why you thought the way you did, but I’d never do anything to hurt Stephanie or your family.”
We were on our way back to our vehicles; our belly’s all stuffed from a delicious meal when I kissed my brother and parents goodnight. Once again, Matt had arranged a perfect evening for me to enjoy with my family, and my best friend. I was just glad that they were all able to finally get on the same page and realize that he’s not the bad guy that they always thought he was.