Chapter 2

Finally, some quiet time.

Matt whistled a low note as he got up from where he sat and walked out to the porch. It had been a busy day with people arriving way into the last minutes of noon. Friends from the city, neighbors, and people that both he and Emmy knew from work, or previous works came. The housewarming lasted until five in the afternoon, although it was way late for a housewarming. Still, Matt appreciated the quiet time that settled in after the guests had departed.

In the days leading to this day, Emmy showed just how good she was at running things. It was a habit she’d learned from working at different offices before, she’d claim, whenever he complimented her about it. Mostly complimented. Matt shook his head and snorted as he sipped from the can. There were days he was close to being annoyed at the many reminders she’d throw at him, one after the other.

Now that the guests had gone home and cleaning up almost done, Matt marveled at how smooth everything went. Given the timeframe, there was no doubt he could not have managed it alone. Then again, if it was just him, he would not have gone for something his wife did. A barbecue in the front yard was what he would have picked.

What a woman.

It has been exactly three weeks since they had moved to the house. Emmy and Matt had timed it such that the children, Gina and Jean, did not have to miss school, preschool in the case of the youngest, Jean. Sitting down in one of the chairs beside the small table in their porch, Matt could still not believe how lucky he was in acquiring the property.

Matt had been a trucker for fourteen years. He and Emmy met on his first year of being a trucker and immediately hit it off. Six months into the relationship, they decided to marry. The young couple settled in an apartment in Wichita, although none of them came from there or anywhere near Wichita. Matt was from Nevada and Emmy was an Illinois girl.

The decision to stay in Wichita sounded practical. It was close to Illinois and had one of the busy stops that Matt always frequented. That was where their first daughter, Gina, was born. The apartment was adequate for their needs until their second daughter came along, Jean. With two daughters growing up, one practically in puberty, Matt knew the apartment would not suffice.

Emmy had brought it up several times. Matt needed no push. He’d been thinking of the same thing, even before the first conversation about it came. He thought about it while on the road, and briefly broached the conversation whenever it was proper, with his fellow truckers. He thought about it even more when Emmy got pregnant with their second child, especially during the times when he got to spend some time back at the apartment.

The stroke of luck came just as their youngest was born. In one of his stops in Ponca City, Matt ran across an old trucker friend by the name of Leroy, a lighthearted giant born and raised in Dallas. It was an old bar. The kind that gave you the impression that it only existed still because of the truckers, bikers, and travelers that had to stop. Over a few beers they asked about each other’s families and it was there that Matt brought up the subject of getting a place of his own.

Leroy had some properties he had heard about but they were too expensive for a trucker with two daughters. That was when Leroy brought up a too-good-to-be-true deal.

“Well, I ain’t sure just how far you’re willing to go out to get a house, or how long for that matter but there’s a lot by Cafee Drive. Been around for years.” The big man said.

“That big?” Matt asked, when Leroy told him about the property. “Why has no one snagged it?”

“Because it’s far from the main road, that’s why.” Leroy answered. “Your closest neighbor is even farther. City zoning doesn’t allow for any kind of farming, though the place looks good for it and no one’s exactly going to build apartments there, ‘cause of where it is.”

“That makes sense. Still, it’s quite cheap. I’m wondering why none of those buy and sell types haven’t gotten their hands on it yet.”

“To be honest, I would have bought it for the same reason if I had the extra cash. Let it sit and appreciate. If there’s anything you can count on, it’s that.”

“Set and forget?”

“Yep. Except I can’t afford to set.”

They shared a laugh and Matt asked Leroy about the lot. The description of the property sounded great. The land was surrounded by trees and was basically on the banks of Green River. To the eager ears of Matt Millar, the large tract of land practically sounded like a steal. It had natural tree cover, there was a triangular patch of natural clearing, and he could fish in the river. There was a catch - there was no house, just the land.

Keeping to how hard it was to please her sometimes, Emmy had many questions about the property, way before they even started asking around. Questions that he did not have answers to. Rightfully, her main concern was the proximity to everything – malls, hospitals, and schools. Despite all that, it took one visit to the lot to have her convinced.

Having heard of the marvelous offer and seeing the place for herself, Emmy was all over Wichita, meeting consultants, even lawyers, to see about options for getting the land and setting a house up. She almost gave up, every consulting agency and every lawyer’s office she went to spoke of big words and promising deals but never really connected with her. Emmy’s parents ran their own hardware store back in Illinois, she knew a sales talk when she heard one. Everyone she met worked to get her into agreeing quickly. That usually spelled regrets later on.

Despite their eagerness, Emmy cautioned against jumping into loans and agreements. In long conversations over the phone while he drove, he was impressed at just how deep his wife knew about things. All he knew about buying properties were limited to, well, buying. The cheapest offer is what he’d pick. Emmy showed him how it wasn’t always the case. In fact, it’s usually what he should be avoiding.

Help came in the guise of novice lawyer, eager to make a good name for himself. Matt had spied the sign to his office being set up in one of his rounds through Eldorado and dropped by on his way back. It was just going to be an inquiry, Matt thought as he walked into the newly set office. He didn’t count on the young lawyer’s apparent need to have his business going.

Numbers were exchanged. Quick calls turned into consultations and soon enough, emails detailing the pros and cons of each offer were exchanged.

Jack Bailey walked Emmy through the different options for financing, the terms, and the long term benefits or pitfalls for each option. What’s more, he did it all pro bono, with just a promise that if the Millars or any of their friends needed any advice, may it be legal or financial; they’d send business down his Eldorado office. Of course, they paid him a reasonable sum once they settled on a deal, despite Jack’s feigned protests.

When Matt got back to their apartment in one of his downtimes, all he needed to do was sign the papers. With financing secured, Matt and Emmy secured the title to the land and once the two-year loan matured, applied for another, still with the help of the goodly lawyer, this time to build the house and secure the necessary permits.

Looking back, Matt smiled at his good fortune. Being a trucker, his credit score was higher than the American average and his loan was given at a lower interest rate in a fifteen year period than what would have been the normal rate. Jack Bailey, the young lawyer did most of the scouting and haggling. With the second loan secured, all of it was spent on building the house, planning and construction soon followed.

Emmy had to quit her job to oversee everything. She didn’t need to. Once the plans were drafted, and what they wanted was taken into consideration, it would have been built to their specifications regardless. But Emmy was a hands-on type of person so she quit her job in order to be present while the house was being built.

Matted scratched at his ear then poked a finger inside and wobbled it around as he felt a bit of pressure followed by a ringing. He’d been getting them lately and attributed it to being unaccustomed to life away from the road. It’s the longest he’s been away from work, away from the road since he'd started being a trucker. As he drank some more and took in the sight before him, he smiled. It would have been possible with just him, but it would not have been as beautiful.

Owing to the almost obsessive manner in which Emmy pored over every detail, from paint colors to the wood finishes, Matt was blown away each time he came back to the site where their house was being built. The roof was barely up before Emmy was already looking at the décor and the kind of dining and living room furniture they were going to get. As soon as the rooms were set and she got a feel for their respective moods, Emmy picked the curtains and beddings to go with each.

The house was, by all accounts, a simple two story house with all of the bedrooms located on the second level. The garage was built detached from the house itself, to the left of the property. Located in a naturally green land, there was not much of landscaping to be done. They decided on having a small cottage to the back of the house, a couple of steps towards the riverbank where they had built an L-shaped wooden walkway that stretched well into the river.

To go with a country look, the house was built mostly of wood. They had planned to have a patio but upon seeing the cost, Emmy being a practical woman, settled for a wide porch instead. They had lights installed in every corner outside the house including in the big garage where all of their tools were kept. The road leading up to the house was packed with rocks, mostly from what was left over.

With the cool breeze coming from the river and the sense of peacefulness and security given off by the trees that surrounded the property, Matt could not ask for a better place to live in. No more bothersome neighbors as well, with the closest being a hundred and fifty meters to the west. Most of all, traffic noise was a thing of the past, the closest road, Cafee Drive, being a quarter of a kilometer away.

Finishing his beer, Matt reminded himself that he and his family were blessed. Yes, he had not yet reached half of his payments for the loan he took for the house yet. Yes, their finances were a little tighter compared to when they were still renting an apartment. But in a time when even owning a small patch of land to build a house on was close to impossible, he knew he was lucky indeed.

He rubbed his fingers against the underside of a wooden railing on the porch where he etched a thin series of markings the day that they officially moved in. He had to run his finger over the area several times but only managed to recognize a series of numbers. 2012. Itching for another beer to finish the day, Matt took one last look at the trees in front of his house and headed inside.