Chapter 37

Tricia stared at her front yard. At first glance there seemed to be cars all over it. There were also two banners hanging on the front porch. One read “Welcome home” and the other read “Congratulations”. The front porch looked crowded. Tricia saw Matty standing on the porch rail as Matt held him from behind. She had to fight down an automatic urge to frown since she hated when they did that. This time she smiled instead as Matty was waving enthusiastically at her. Her mom and dad were there as was Matt’s dad which surprised her. Mary Beth, one of her best friends and her husband Dutch and their three kids were there. Another of her friends, Kerrie, was there with her two kids as well.

Pulling up to the house Tricia got out and was instantly mobbed. She picked Matty up and they exchanged a big hug then Matt joined them hugging them both.

“I’m glad you’re home Mommy!” Matty said enthusiastically.

“Me too,” Matt added, smiling.

“Me three!” Tricia said kissing Matty and then Matt.

“Yuck!” Matty said, watching Tricia kissing  Matt. “Come see our surprise Mommy!”

Tricia looked at Matt. “Isn’t you all greeting me like this the surprise?”

“Only the tip of the iceberg,” he assured her.

Matty was squirming to be put down and when Tricia put him down he grabbed her hand. “Come on Mommy. I’ll show you.”

“Soon sweetie,” Tricia told him, greeting the others there with hugs, kisses and hand shakes.

There was a swirl of talk with everybody talking all at once. Through it all Matty was tugging on Tricia’s hand and more and more loudly trying to get her to follow him.

Finally Mary Beth laughed and said, “People we had better let Matty show her the surprise before Tricia loses an arm because Matty pulled it off.”

Matty, leading Tricia by the hand, proudly led the way around the house. Tricia began to be a little afraid that Matt had given in and gotten Matty a pony. Matty wanted one and they’d discussed it and decided it was not a good idea.

Her fears were quickly laid to rest though when she was led around the corner of the house into the back yard. There in front of her instead of the old deck that had been getting closer and closer to being unsafe she saw a beautiful sun porch built just the way she’d dreamed it. It could have been taken from some of the magazine pictures she had clipped and hung on the fridge, in fact, she decided, it probably had been.

Her eyes filled with tears and she looked up at Matt who was beaming. “Oh honey! Is this why you were so eager to have me go play the tournament for so long?”

He hugged her and shrugged. “That’s part of it. I think you’ll find it’s just what you had wanted for so long. I finally got around to getting it done.”

“It’s wonderful! Thank you!” She threw her arms around Matt and gave him a big hug and a deep kiss.

They were interrupted by an impatient Matty tugging on her hand again. “Mommy! You got to see inside! Come see inside!”

Tricia let Matty lead her inside and she stopped, stunned again. Inside it was decorated just like she had dreamed as well. There was even a brand new hot tub bubbling away in one corner.

She turned to Matt in wonder. “You got all this done in two weeks?” Then she also got practical. “Can we afford this?” She began to see her tournament prize going away to pay for it.Still, she thought, it would be worth it.

“We can afford it,” Matt assured her. “You know I’ve had a lot of new work. I also traded out some work for a couple of the guys and they did the work that I couldn’t do so it only cost me for the materials and I even got a deal on that.”

“But the hot tub!” Tricia said, amazed.

Matt beamed. “You’ll have some extra bookkeeping to do. I have been keeping the cash from some of my smaller jobs that paid cash so I could surprise you with this.”

“I don’t know what to say Matt,” Tricia said. “And here you were acting so strange I thought you were up to something while I was gone.”

Matt shrugged. “I guess I’m not that great at hiding things. I don’t have your poker face.”

Tricia laughed. “Well I was totally surprised so you hid it just fine! Hell I wasn’t sure what you were up to but it surely wasn’t this!”

“You owe Mary Beth some thanks too,” Matt told her. “She did the decorating.”

Tricia looked over at Mary Beth who was watching her with tears running down her cheeks and a big smile on her face. “Thank you so much! It’s just perfect!”

They exchanged hugs and Mary Beth said, “I tried to make it look like you’d always talked about. The only difference really is that Matty wanted his toy box out here and we decided that would be fine with you.”

“Of course it is!” Tricia said then looked down at Matty. “What do you think of it sweetie? Did you help Daddy?”

“I did!” Matty said, obviously proud of himself. “Daddy said I helped good so I get to have my toy box here as long as I keep my toys picked up like a big boy. Alsohe told me to never mess with the hot tub without Mommy or Daddy with me. Right Daddy?”

Matt chuckled. “Right sprout,” Then he looked at Tricia, knowing what she was thinking. “The cover for the hot tub locks so as long as it’s on he can’t get into it. I just left it off so you’d see it that way.”

Tricia smiled at him, happy not only because he had read her mind but because he’d even thought of it. Maybe, she thought, he had been listening even when she didn’t think he had been.

The party began in earnest then and everybody wanted her to tell all about her experiences. She told some, but by no means, all of it.

When she mentioned Kevin and how he’d been such a big help to her and Gary and Sandy she had been watching Matt out of the corner of her eye and had been happy not to see him seem to react in jealousy.

Kerrie and Mary Beth both told her they were jealous that she’d gotten to go like she had but then had told her they were both proud of her for doing so well. Dutch and Matt had both been interested to hear that she had met Carmen Cruz. She knew that Matt would know who she was from the poker that she’d made him watch with her. She hadn’t known that Dutch would know who she was. In typical Dutch fashion he had made some crude remark about Carmen that had reminded Tricia why he was not one of her favorite people and that had made Mary Beth roll her eyes when she and Tricia exchanged glances.

Through the swirl of talk and merriment, much more sober merriment than she had become accustomed to, Tricia’s thoughts drifted to other things. Primarily she felt that maybe this did settle her doubts about Matt’s acting different. Also she had realized that there had to be some money from jobs that Matt had not been giving her, either that or he was not working nearly as much as he’d said he was.  It would be a pain in the butt catching up she thought, but it would be worth it.

She kept walking around looking at her new sun porch as the little party went on. Tricia kept thanking both Matt and Mary Beth, especially Mary Beth. At one point she had had a nearly private moment and had said, “Thank you so much for decorating so wonderfully. It wasn’t too hard on you working with Matt was it?”

Tricia knew that Matt bugged Mary Beth nearly as much sometimes as Dutch bugged her. Matt and Dutch, while not super close friends were fishing and hunting buddies and when together sometimes drove both women crazy.

Mary Beth had just shrugged. “No actually it wasn’t that bad. It didn’t take me long to convince him that I knew what I was doing and he didn’t. That never would have worked with Dutch, I’ll tell you that!”

They had both laughed at that. It amused her that Mary Beth thought Matt was more reasonable than Dutch. She’d always thought that but finding out Mary Beth did was a distinct surprise.

“It was actually a lot of fun,” Mary Beth said. “It’s a good thing you don’t have any close neighbors though or they’d all be talking about all the visits I had to make to get it done. God in my neighborhood the neighbors would have had a field day with rumors!”

Tricia had laughed knowing very well how Mary Beth’s neighbors liked to gossip from years of experience. She knew some of them and knew they were some of the biggest gossips ever.

As Matty’s bed time approached the party began to wind down. Tricia’s mom and dad were the last guests there. Her dad gave her a hug. “It sounds like you did real good honey. I’m proud of you.”

That had made Tricia’s tears well up. She couldn’t remember the last time her father had said he was proud of her. She could very well remember how ashamed he told her he was of her after Matt found out about Jaime years ago.

“We’ve got one last surprise for you,” her mom said. “We’re going to take Matty with us for one more night. Isn’t that right Matty?”

Matty nodded vigorously. “Gramma says Mommy and Daddy need time. Gramma says you will kiss all the time and that’s yucky. Gramma says you’ll pick me up in the morning, will you mommy?”

Tricia scooped Matty up into her arms and kissed him. “Of course I will sweetheart! Will you be ok for one more night with Gramma and Grampa? I will make it up to you.”

“Sure,” Matty said. “They let me sleep in my sleeping bag on the floor. It’s like camping only the cats sleep with me.”

Tricia laughed. “Ok well be good and I’ll see you in the morning.”

After another round of hugs and kisses Tricia was alone with Matt. She turned around looking at the inside of the sun porch. She hugged Matt and kissed him deeply. “Thank you sweetie. You have no idea how much this means to me.”

Matt kissed her back and then with an almost embarrassed expression on his face smiled and said. “I’m glad you like it. I know you’ve wanted it for a very long time. I thought it was time. We really can afford it. I’ll give you the paperwork in the morning.”

“Whenever,” Tricia said leaning against Matt, not caring about details at the moment.

“How about testing out the hot tub?” Matt said. “You might not like it you know.”

Tricia laughed. “Fat chance! I’ll love it. Let me go change into my bathing suit.”

“I didn’t arrange for Matty to spend one more night at your parents so you could go in the hot tub in your bathing suit. We’re here all alone…what’s stopping us?”

Tricia’s looked at Matt in surprise. He was normally very conservative about nudity and sex in general. He was, she had thought at times, a bit of a prude at times. This was a surprise but a pleasant one.

“What about the neighbors? Won’t they see in?”

Matt grinned and walked over, letting down roll up bamboo shades, giving them all the privacy they could want. “Any other questions?”

“Nope!” Tricia said with a smile. “Last one in is a rotten egg!”

Matt laughed but Tricia thought he undressed slower than her as much because he was watching her as she did as anything else.

“I win!” Tricia said sliding in, “Oh it feels heavenly!”

“I don’t know.” Matt said finishing undressing and then sliding into the warm water with her. “I think it was worth losing in that case. I enjoyed the show.”

He reached for her and she slid over to him. Their lips met and his hands began to caress her. She found as she reached for him that he was apparently as ready for her as she was for him.