There is a look he gets at times. He forgets that I may be watching him. I see it fall over him. It breaks my heart and yet I feel that I can do nothing about it.

Nothing.

It is a burden he alone shares.

I worry that perhaps I add to that burden in ways I can never ease.

Or understand.

Part of it is that I bear a burden as well ... a burden I don't want him to worry over just as he no doubt wishes I would not worry over his burden. Sometimes, I know this and it makes me feel bad, but sometimes I can admit to myself that I just don't have it in me right now to open up and make him know I see the extra burden he's carrying around with him lately because I don't know that I'm able to share it.

Even if I would.

Like him, I try to hide the fact I feel this burden ... a weight that is new and hard ... a weight that is heavier because of the past that I am reminded of just because of the burden.

I have heard people say that in marriage the ideal is that you share each other's burdens; that by sharing, you lighten the weight. What would I know of a good marriage? The only way I'd know is in the negative space concept ... if I take my nearest and dearest example of marriage, I'd have to aim for the opposite to hit something I think might be good. But what do I really know? I have no experience with how it's really supposed to work so that you both have a good life together.

The only marriage I've known well, intimately well, is my parents' marriage. This is largely why I'd never married, truth be told. I fear the loss of love inside a marriage. My mother said she loved him once, my father. You could never have told from my vantage point so I only had her word on it ... and two grainy black and white pictures ... one of her giving him a Betty Grable pin up pose and one of him on the same beach towel she'd posed on, sleeping with his shirt off. Both pictures were taken during their honeymoon when they'd gone to the beach in Biloxi and she says this was how she prefers to remember their marriage because it's the one documented time of when she believed their love was real and true and would never leave.

They shared their burdens and what did it get them in the end?

Or did they?

I don't know. By the time I was old enough to have memories, I don't know if they even talked to each other about dreams or desires or worries or the future. I know he hit a lot and she cowered in the face of it. I know I'll never let any man do that to my children ... to teach them that a father is to be feared rather than loved.

Of course, Maximus knows this ... all of it. Well, almost all of it. I have shared so much with him that it still can take my breath away that I feel I can tell him of what has hurt and what has never healed.

It pains him in ways I don't understand ... and yet, I do. I know that part of it is that he wishes he'd been there, back then, so that he could have protected me, kept me from harm. I understand this impulse ... because I would give anything to have been there during his ordeal and kept him from his horrific losses. If it were in my power, I would set him back down in his own time, in that life, and I would keep the Emperor from ever asking him to be the Protector of Rome. I would give all my life to see him winding his way home, alone upon a horse, the burden of his former life as a general gone and replaced by the joy of his future as husband, father, farmer.

He accepts his fate. I accept my past. But it doesn't make either of us wish anything less than to change what the other has had to accept.

I told him once, not that long after we got power back after Katrina, that we've each walked a long path to get to where we are and that I would never change a thing in my own life, not one single thing, if at the end of my life I got to love him even for one moment. So to think I get the reality of this time with him is the gift of my entire lifetime.

And that's the kind of marriage I think is right for us both.

The kind that at the end of the day, you would be able to honestly say that you would go through all the horrible times of your life all over again if you could end up with this love that has made you believe, despite all your life has taught you to the contrary, that you will be in love with your spouse forever.

Most of the repairs are done. We are still wrestling with insurance because ownership of the property is in dispute ... our act of sale, you see, was filed several days before the hurricane but the official paperwork is now among the waterlogged court records somewhere in one of the government buildings flooded in New Orleans. So even though we have insurance, we don't have a clear deed and this is causing problems.

Originally, I was the one doing the fight with insurance.

Except that Max was there the day the adjuster came by to climb all over the property, to look at all our receipts and estimates, to ask why we had gone ahead with repairing the stable without waiting on insurance to give us the okay.

Max didn't say much at first. He let me field the questions, show the proof, ask for information. But when the guy said there was going to be this problem of us proving the act of sale was final when it had never officially made it into the computer records of the state court system and so it just may be that the insurance policy we had was for property we didn't own and therefore could not make a claim to have repaired ... Max just looked at him. Just looked. And waited.

I started to say something but Max put his hand up and I let him take over. I just let him. As if I was some mealy-mouthed simp of a woman who could not do battle with injustice and other insurance issues.

Except ... that's really what I did. I clamped my mouth shut when Max put his hand up. I sat there and just let him assume this burden. One more burden in a world of post-hurricane burdens.

We were sitting in our kitchen. The insurance guy was unable to take Max's unyielding stare. Max leaned forward. The guy put his hands up and said for us not to worry. Max told him, low and very tight, that he was not worried.

The guy gulped. Hard. Max's hand upon the table flexed into a fist and then he let it relax.

Ralph told me later that he'd never really seen Max as angry as he was after the adjuster left.

We have still not resolved the insurance issue.

Max took it on as a responsibility after that and I can't seem to take back from him. Maybe if I really wanted it, I could fight for it. But I don't. I just ... don't. Besides, he doesn't want to let it go ... he wants this burden. He thinks by taking it on, he lessens my burden. But he doesn't ... only I can't tell him that.

I have been so sad lately. So many things seem insurmountable to me in the last week or so ... and I don't care as much. I'm half-awake most of the time. I don't remember feeling quite this blank before. The holidays have come; we are in that curious month between Thanksgiving and Christmas ... and I feel caught between what I should be feeling and what I am feeling ... because I don't know how to plan for Christmas this year. On the one hand, I feel incredibly blessed just to be alive and have a home ... but lurking underneath it all is this crazy edge of a feeling that I'm waiting to cry. Yet I don't honestly know what I have to cry about this long after the storm. I tell myself it's just stress ... I feel like I'd feel better if I could go on and get the crying over with but I am swimming along so why invite in a crying jag?

What I really wish I knew was this: what to get Max for Christmas. I don't want to buy him something ... I'd be spending his money to get him a gift. That doesn't seem very personal or like it takes much effort. I want to "do" something for him instead ... or make him something ... or find something heartfelt and sentimental to give him.

Max hasn't traveled as much since the storm and I suppose that makes sense considering how much has to be overseen and watched at the port here. He travels away from New Orleans maybe once a week on average but he's only gone overnight when he does have to go. The rest of the time, he is home late in the evening after commuting from the city. And he is home every weekend. I have relished having him around ... I would go stark raving mad up here on my own for too long.

Yesterday, he came home from work and said we had been invited to an office holiday function this weekend. His company is throwing a "little" gathering ... nothing formal ... just a cocktail party the weekend before Christmas at the Windsor Court. Even pre-Katrina, the Windsor Court was easily the ritziest hotel around as well as the toniest place I could think of to have an office soirée.

I have nothing to wear for something like this. Nada. Everything I had was in the condo and it's gone now ... gone with the mold. He's in the same boat. He has one suit left and it's not something you'd wear to this. Everything else he has is 'working' work clothes because work is down and dirty more now than it ever was and no one in his New Orleans crew is wearing suits to work anymore. Even him.

It's impossible. How do I get such clothes for us in just a few days for this? My mother told me to take some time off, to drive somewhere, some city that is actually alive and flush with fancy clothes. Some city that is not mostly wounded and where stores that are open are not holding one hand up to ward off another blow. Of course, that is not what I've chosen to do. I think I should support the local economy.

Pete has come with me on the drive into New Orleans today. I wanted to go shop Uptown, where damage has by now been mostly swept up. Max insisted that I would not go alone into the city. If he knew I'd been making the trip there ... that I had gone to my Mom's still-unoccupied home Uptown already several times when he was out of town ... he'd have an absolute cow.

I did take Pete with me once when I went in. It was early October and Max was in Mobile. I got this notion to go back to the condo. I asked Pete to come with me because I was still a bit afraid of what I'd find inside the building. It was still a shambles and the refuse pile out front was so large that I knew a lot of residents had done what Max and I had done - just toss everything and save the scant things you can before fleeing from the nasty stuff that Katrina whooshed down on the building's interior.

The reason I went was because I realized that Max hadn't saved all his mementos of his former life. I thought that perhaps if I went back for a less rushed visit that I could find the clay lamp or the bone stylus or one of his figurines or something else. Every time I had said to Max how sorry I was that we had not taken them with us, he said he didn't care about them.

But I did.

I wanted him to have them. 

Pete and I found the stylus but it had snapped. Max or I had probably walked on it when we were trying to navigate the shambles of the living room. Pete found the first pieces of the clay lamp and later I sat on the balcony in shock as I laid out all the shards and remnants we finally found. I don't know why that upset me like it did. But it did.

For many days after that, I worked long hours in the studio at the new house to figure out how to put the pieces back together. Eventually, I started gluing them in place. It was tough but in the end, I had most of it. It looked like an archeological find. I didn't ever show Max though because I thought it was too broken, too wrong to ever give him the solace it once had.

This trip into New Orleans today should be much more pleasant because we won't be going to the bad places that are still abandoned and destroyed. Pete and I try to ignore Lakeview when it appears to our left as he drives his truck over the 17th Street Canal. But it's like passing a car accident on the side of the expressway ... you have to look and I do every time I drive into the city because I simply cannot not look. It's like a bomb has gone off and left behind it a nuclear wasteland of brown vegetation and shattered lives.

We stop at my Mom's house to check on things. We find a notice posted on the front door saying if we get an electrician's affidavit that the wiring is safe, the city will come hook up the electricity. Pete says he will handle that next week.

Pete is going to move in with my Mom when she comes back to her home, which will happen once she has utilities. He will finish the few repairs remaining and stay to assure that she's safe. This is Max's idea ... and it's a good one although I will miss Pete being around our place.

I love that Max is looking out for my Mom. I love that he is that way.

But ...

Oh, I don't know.

Never mind. It's not important.

I was going to leave Pete there, at my Mom's house, and he could just relax there while I shop but he is under Max's orders now ... and so shaking him would be akin to shaking Max. It kind of infuriates me ... I am not a child and New Orleans post-Katrina is safer than it's ever been in my life. So I hate, I really do, that he acts like I need a bodyguard or chaperone.

But that's not really so important. Some day, I guess, Max will calm down and I'll be able to go back to being normal.

Although ...

What is normal anymore? It's not normal, that's what normal is. And it's never coming back. You have no idea how hard that has been to accept.

We start out at a couple of dress stores on Magazine. Everything seems matronly to me. I want something sexy, I think. I want something sophisticated. I want something classic. I don't really know what I want.

When I give up, our next stop is Rubenstein's on Canal near the river. I want a classic, midnight blue, shawl collared tuxedo for Max. They have just what I want and I can see him in it already. But then Pete reminds me that what I need to buy Max for the party in question is a dinner suit. They have a charcoal black, incredible suit that is so perfect. It costs a fortune ... but it is a Zenga, so I get it ... and besides, Max gave me a credit card so it's almost like not spending money because I have nothing but the desire to buy for him.

We walk into the Quarter for lunch while the salesman gathers up shirt, tie, shoes ... I didn't want to have to worry over the details and I figure it will be a little surprise for me as well when Max gets dressed that night.

Over lunch, Pete and I talk about the fact that I need to get in touch with the old owner of the place in Folsom. I don't want them worrying over this business with ownership, insurance and the flooded deed, Pete points out. And then he says that Ralph has stayed in touch with 'her.'

"Her?"

"The owner. The former owner."

"I thought it was a family. Or a couple ... that a couple had owned the place."

"No ... she was all that was left." He colors, deep and ruddy. "Ralph worked for the family ... when the family was there. But Miss Rebecca was all that was left. He mainly stayed on to make sure the place didn't fall down before she sold it."

He pronounces her name as "Miz R'bcca" and so I know she is of his mother's generation. That is how we show respect here for our parents' age group ... we call them "Miz" or "Misstah" and their first name. He slurs her first name and I think he probably feels genuine affection for her.

"Where is she now?"

"In one of those assisted living places. Near her niece. In Denver."

"Oh. Well, I wouldn't want her to worry, that's for sure." I pause, sip my tea and then blurt out, "When we bought it, the seller was listed as a corporation. I assumed the family had been transferred and had sold it to some relocation firm."

"Her niece set it up that way ... shelters the money from the government, I think is why she did it. So Miss Rebecca would still have some money."

"I'll ask Ralph for her address."

"Maybe you should write to the niece."

"Okay. I can do that." I look at him and know there is something I should be curious about in this whole affair of the house and the former owners and his brother Ralph. But ... I let it go. It just seems easier.

After we pick up the suit and accessories at Rubenstein's, I am lost suddenly in a city I used to know so familiarly and affectionately. There're so many places that I'd normally shop for a dress but they are closed, all the ones I can think of easily as one of those places where I think it'd be simple to go downtown and find a dress on the rack.

I find it hard to shop with Pete along. I'm not a good shopper anyway but it is more awkward with Pete. For one thing, his idea of a comment on a dress is "yeah okay."

If only Paul were here. If only there was still a way into the pub from New Orleans, I'd go and get Paul and before I knew it, he'd have me focused and having fun. Or if Chili were around, he'd already have my outfit selected and I'd have no choice in the matter ... God, how I miss Chili.

Max and I don't talk about the pub much. It's a burden we think pains the other too badly to really talk about how much we abhor that we have lost our way into the pub. We stay in contact with everyone more or less but it's not the same thing at all. And there is a lot we can't tell people over the phone because they just aren't here to fight this fight so they wouldn't understand. People need to get on with their lives, we understand that. We're getting on with our lives, too, but we simply have to take it slower and it's just really tough sometimes.

Missing the pub is like missing normal. It's a stab to the gut. It's just never going to be there, I know that. Max knows that. His stoicism deals with it by accepting it as easily as he accepts the changing of the seasons.

Sometimes his ability to accept makes me love him all the more. Sometimes it makes me want to run screaming like a banshee.

But the reality is ... the pub is no longer accessible and I don't have either Paul or Chili to go shopping with me ... I have Pete.

Pete who sits in the chair reserved for husbands and boyfriends waiting on their women to try on dresses and then model them for the man they are trying to impress. Pete who sits and stares at his watch like he can will time to go faster. Pete who is dressed in old jeans and a dark t-shirt that is clean even if it is faded. Pete who won't take off his baseball jacket inside any of these stores because he feels more secure with it on as if the salesladies take less notice of his work boots since he's got the jacket on. Pete who only smiles lazily at one dress the entire day and who stops smiling almost instantly when he realizes he is giving my body the once over.

That's the dress I buy.

Maximus works on the land he owns as if it is all there ever was or ever will be. He comes alive here in a way I never fail but to be captivated by. Even the simple chores that you'd think he might find pure drudgery, he takes some palpable pleasure from.

I watch him covertly. He pretends to not understand why I watch him with my own palpable pleasure. Besides, if he catches me watching him, he's quite likely to give me yet another hands-on lesson on mucking out the stalls.

Watching him today fills me with the desire to not go to the party tonight. Of course, I do know we have to go, that there is no "not going" when it is a party he must go to because his bosses and  co-workers will be there along with the heads of the government agency for which they do the security contract at the ports.

He is looking forward to tonight as an official appearance. He is looking forward to me being on his arm. He is looking forward to being proud to have me there, to introduce me as his wife. He is proud of this and yet I am pretty sure I will find a way to screw up tonight. I will say something or do something to embarrass him. I will have an opinion and it will be the opposite of his bosses or the government officials. I will say it anyway and I will not back down. I do those kinds of things and normally it's not that big a deal because ... well, because when it's just me, people don't hold my opinion against anyone but me. But when you're attending an office function and your role is only as the regional chief's wife, then you're just an extension of him so your opinion and the fact you'll express it does reflect on him.

But also ... Maximus is a bit nervous about tonight. I can tell by how terse he's been all day. More, though, I can tell by how his eyes looked when I glanced up from the newspaper this morning to find him in the kitchen, having suddenly just been there and for how long, I don't know. I'd been staring at the same article for maybe ten minutes and I don't honestly remember so much as the headline, I admit, because my mind was not really there. Somehow, I think he knew this. Maybe he doesn't feel comfortable taking me with him tonight if he feels I'm not playing my best game. But his look gave me such an unpleasant jolt. Like I'd failed a test or disappointed him.

I don't think, really, that in his time he would have taken his wife to some official army meeting or anything. Or if he did, I would venture he never worried that his wife would do anything that would be outside what his society would consider appropriate. But ... once again ... it's the clash between what he knew and what he's not sure of in this era and what he wishes would be simple but won't be. Maybe it's not a matter of whether or not I "behave" so much as it is allowing the two sides of his life, work and home, collide like this.

Today as I watch him, covertly, he and Ralph are working on another section of the fence that was felled by a tree. The horses have been let free to run in this section of the pasture. If it were me, I'd be afraid they'd bolt past where the work is being done on the fence. But they don't.

For a while, they prance and flicker around the grassy area, dodging large limbs that still dot the area. Eventually, they come near where Max and Ralph toil. Only the stallion stays away. The two mares whinny and shiver as they munch grass and flirt with the men.

Max sweats as he labors. He is not wearing a shirt because it is our version of fall, which means it is pretty warm and on the muggy side. If there's winter this year, it will be fleeting although they do tell us that tomorrow the temperature will drop into the 40s overnight.

I love to watch his forearms. They impress me. Sometimes after we make love and he cuddles around my form, I like to simply put my hand flat over one of his forearms. I like to feel the hair there. I like to feel the muscles move when he shifts and cups a breast or rubs over my tummy. Seeing him wield a sledgehammer as he drives a post into place ... I watch his forearms absorb the blows.

My own task today was to clear out the section of the attic where the worst of the roof damage is. Sometime soon we hope a roofer will be out to give us a new roof but we also know he'll have some carpentry work to do in that section of the eaves. We thought if that area was easy for him to work in, it was a good thing. It didn't take me much time at all to clear that area out. I had thought it would take all day, but it was nothing.

With my task complete, I would watch Max in his element all day. But I've actually done something useful ... I've made lunch for him and Pete and Ralph. So after I've been caught watching him, I show him the basket I've brought down there to them and the jug of cold tea I carry in the other hand.

He is still almost formal with me when Ralph and Pete are around. There's no grabbing me and kissing me soundly. But his eyes tell me things ... and I walk away from the encounter with him and his testosterone as if I'm wobbling under its impact.

Back in the kitchen, I pack my own lunch in a little bag and call Buck to come walk with me. We wander away from the house and the stable and the fence repair work. We end up spreading a blanket in a far off section of the property, where Max feels the slight slope of the land toward the bayou is angled perfectly for the right sun exposure. This is where he would wish to plant grape vines that he will someday harvest to make wine as a hobby.

This is where I come now when I want to be near Max's dreams and search for my own. I have dreams ... I do. I just don't know that I feel it's safe yet to really say them out loud because I'm still living a life that expects to be taken away at any moment. I haven't really settled into the future that is the present, I realize with a flash of inspiration as Buck gnaws on a piece of rawhide I've brought for him to enjoy.

"I should write that down. That is really inspired," I say wisely to Buck who pauses to glance behind me and give a little growl before rolling over and showing me his wanger. "Well, I think that is rather a rude comment on my creative vision, my little friend. Just remember who feeds you every day before you go treating me so badly."

"Perhaps his reaction was to my arrival and not your musing," a warm voice says right behind me just a second before lips are pressed warmly into the top of my head.

Maximus plops down unceremoniously on the blanket. He reaches with one hand to tousle Buck's furry belly ... and with the other he takes the apple from my hand and shoves it part way in his mouth, biting off a huge chunk before blithely handing it back to me.

"Jesus, Max," I say as I frown at the remains of my beautiful apple. "Why didn't you just eat the whole thing?"

"How kind of you to offer ... but I have just eaten lunch and am rather full," he replies as he rolls onto his back and looks up into the tree canopy, both hands resting on his bare chest.

I nudge him with my foot. "You bastard."

"You love me as I am. You do not fool me."

"That was my lunch."

"You should eat more."

"Hmm. Well ... I have to fit into the dress tonight. Speaking of tonight, I should go and start getting ready, I suppose."

"Stay here with me."

"You're too liable to talk me into trouble," I say. 

He lifts his head and smiles playfully at me. "Why did you think I came to find you?"

"I had an idea ... which is why I'm leaving ..."

He grabs my ankle when I rise. We are looking right at each other. One of his eyebrows goes up. There are no two ways about it ... that look makes me wet and I wish I could learn to control myself around him, but there you go.

"No ... you can't have your way with me," I say tartly.

His hand tightens, almost imperceptibly. 

"Do you know what?" I whisper to him. "You make me so happy. Sometimes when I look at you and ... I think about last year at this time ... and how sad I was because I was in love with you and you didn't have a clue. And I was so positive there was never going to be a time when you'd ever love me back."

"Everything is different this year."

"It is." He lets me go and I drop to my knees even as he sits up to hold me against his torso. "Max ... you love me?"

"With all I am."

"That's how I love you."

"What can I do to bring your laughter back, cara?"

"I'm so happy with you ... why would you say that?" I bend until I can kiss him, soft and long. When I finish, I study his face ... the lines now etched more than they should be, the twinkle in his eyes not always easy for him to call up, smudges of honest labor on his cheek that disappear into his tidy beard. "I worry about you, my love. You have the weight of the world on your shoulders."

He shakes this off ... and yet, I think, there's something else here ... something he can't quite bring himself to say to me. Is he overwhelmed with responsibility? Is he resentful I'd think he can't handle everything and then some? Is he wishing I would take some of the load off him? Is he just tired, as I am, of some parts of this journey while other parts are pretty nice?

"You never told me, Max ... how is it going with the insurance company?"

He groans and buries his face between my breasts. But I never relax into the sex play and he was only pretending he wanted to go there anyway. Finally, he fixes me with a gaze that is so serious.

"I have little patience for this particular form of torture," he says. His voice is low and steady. My eyes drift from his. "And you know that, Anna."

"Do you need me to ..."

"I need a partner."

"Then you have to not try and take everything over from me, Max. I am actually capable of ..." My eyes have flashed to his. There is some kind of wordless, emotionless battle going on in our gaze into each other. "Why don't you let me see what I can wrestle out of them?"

He nods. It's short, crisp. No flourish. No emphasis. Just ... handing this back to me. All I can do is touch him. He touches me with nothing but his hard-pressed faith in me and the wish that his simple, direct ways will be enough.

I always have been rather goal-oriented. I feel he's given me a signpost, a measure I can meet if I will it so. And still ... is this what he needs? Who does he have to help him if I'm willing to shirk my duties?

He catches me unawares as I stand in the middle of our bedroom and try to remember how to do this.

It's been so very long since I've dressed up in anything approaching the way I planned to dress tonight for his company's Christmas party in the haphazardly-alive New Orleans. I can't remember the routine anymore ... that way I had once upon a time of knowing without thinking it over what order to put things on and even what to put on under the dress. Do I even have on the right kind of bra and what was I thinking when I let the saleslady talk me into these heels, is what I'm musing when he breezes out of the bathroom after taking his shower.

"Is that a new ..." he casts stiffly for the right word ... "camisole?"

I chuckle at him. "Pretty good, my love. Someone's trained you well."

He rolls his eyes. He is looking rather serious, nervous in the way that only Maximus can look nervous. 

"Yes. It's new. Do you like it?" I ask him, relenting, letting us both relax into nonsense patter. 

He nods but he doesn't approach. Instead he's casually drying off with his towel. I like to observe him when he is just doing the normal things a man does when getting dressed or undressed. I feel I know his routine so well, that I could do it for him. He'd just have to stand there, with beads of moisture from his shower upon his body, and I'd roughly rub his shoulders, over his chest, under his arms, then between his legs I'd go slow and rather soft, and then down all the way to his toes ... yes, I could even imitate how he dries between his toes.

I'm sitting on the bed now and he's taken his shirt off the hangar where I'd carefully placed it after ironing it this morning. He's brusquely buttoning ... and striding absentmindedly toward his dresser. It's not until he's got his underwear pulled on, socks and all, that he really looks at me. By then he's doing up his tie.

"What?"

I hate being caught this way ... you know that by now I should have had my fill of looking at him. But I have yet to reach that point where I still can't just watch sometimes. I feel myself flush. He's serious. I'm flustered. What was it I was doing again? Oh yeah ... getting dressed ...

"Nothing ... I was just thinking."

"Thinking?"

"Er ... uh ..." He has got me like a turkey in the crosshairs. I'm just sitting here on the edge of our bed, in a black camisole and half slip ... even my hose are not on yet ... and I'm holding my shoes of all things. "I was just ..."

"Just?"

Embarrassed in the face of his gravity, I throw an arm up and duck my head behind the crook of my elbow to avoid his eyes but he clears his throat. I roll my eyes and I would love to keep hiding but the best I can do is peek at him while I consider tossing a shoe at him. "I don't know if wearing these is a good idea ... that's all. It's been so long since I've gotten dressed up ... I think I've forgotten how to wear heels ... I think I'll go with flats instead ..."

"No. I wish you to wear those shoes." I'm no longer blushing ... just like that. I hear the steel in his voice. I start to shake my head, to open my mouth, to say something smart but he cuts me off curtly. "Wear the shoes in your hands. It is my desire to see you in them tonight."

I'm glad he's turning from me ... to get his new suit off the hangar ... I blink ... I have to admit to the way my heart is racing, to the pulse in my groin, to the shine in my brain. I don't know how he does this but he does. And I love that he can. No other man I ever knew could. I am safe when he makes me afraid ... so I can relish the way it feels to know he's up to something and to know it will be a challenge but that he will never let me do anything that would truly be dangerous. Not that it's not dangerous with him. Just that it's a good dangerous.

There was a time when I hated living on the edge. I just never had an edge to life like the one he gives me. Everything is so different.

And this is what I keep coming to in these fleeting glimpses when I wonder why I'm sad ... and why I cannot just shake it off when I don't seem to have a reason to be sad. I am so grateful for what I do have ... but ... is it important? I don't know sometimes.

But my fleeting glimpse takes a solid form in this moment I hope I can hang onto in the months ahead as we face the recovery of a city that will never be recovered or reclaimed ... it will just be renewed. It will be new.

This is the sadness. It flits around the edges of the hard effort to rebuild. It won't quite rush away with each step we take, each success over the struggle, each nugget of knowing it is worth fighting to get what we can back for our region. It is this that makes me sad: I haven't accepted that even for all we've lost, we can still gain.

I wear the heels.

I trip walking out of the house, mind you, and later I have to grab onto Max twice before we even enter the hotel to re-learn the way to balance on shoes like this. He acts as if he doesn't notice but I know he does.

During the cocktail party, I drank champagne. It tasted of wheat and sun and a place far from here. For the last hour of the party, my feet were killing me. I should have sat down but I had a reason for sticking close to Max by then.

He knows I drank more than I should have for a function like this. Thank goodness it didn't make me really talkative and opinionated. This time, it just made me quiet but prone to giggling.

I wasn't hanging on him, that last hour. But I did steady myself by touching on his elbow every so often. Every time I shifted on those heels and tried to find comfort, I felt myself drift so I took a sip of champagne and touched him to steady myself.

Now we are riding in an elevator in the hotel. Just me and Max. I could hold onto him now, let him help me as I suffer from these heels I cannot wait to remove. But I don't. I'm fascinated by the smoky grey burnished surfaces of the elevator. I can see us. Both of us, in the reflection. He is staring straight ahead; I wonder if he's looking at himself or me or nothing at all.

"You look so sexy tonight," I say to him. I still can't tell if he's looking at me. "Did you approve of the suit I picked out?"

"Are you tired, cara?" he asks me.

"Yes, I am." I turn to look at him but he's still looking straight ahead. "My feet hurt. I don't know if I can even walk another step in these shoes. I guess I'm out of practice getting dressed up like a lady."

The elevator stops and he puts a hand on my elbow to move me out with him. I look around as I walk gingerly out of the elevator ... we are not in the lobby where we should be. Instead, we are in a hallway, an upper floor, where hotel rooms are.

"Max? What's going on?"

"We are spending the night here." He picks me up ... just like that ... swings me up in his arms and starts walking down the hall. "Allow me to assure you get to our room sometime this year."

I giggle and hold on around his neck. "Really? Max ... really? Staying here? It's so nice here ... but won't everyone talk about us when we check out wearing the same clothes we wore coming in here tonight?"

"No one would dare speak about you when I am anywhere around to have something to say about it," he growls in my ear, making me shiver hard in his arms.

"Someone was talking about you tonight," I say as he opens the door.

He's busy with me ... with holding me in his arms and closing the door and locking it behind us and letting me kiss his neck and lick his earlobe and whisper assorted notions in his ear ... and with plopping me down on the bed.

I grab his belt on the way down and won't let go. So he's forced to come with me into the bed ... to crawl carefully lest he hurt me ... to put his knees on the mattress but not on me ... to let  me pull him down ... down until he's bending over me and we are shamelessly kissing.

Only after the kiss ends ... after he nuzzles hard at my neck and I am unzipping him to put my hand in to play with him ... only then does he rise, easily dislodging my hand from inside his pants.

I raise up on my elbows to watch him move about the room. I'm not drunk ... just that pleasant, giggly buzz that feels good but can also be dangerous.

"Take it off. Take it all off," I say to him as he drops his suit jacket across one of the chairs and begins loosening his tie. My voice is pitched husky.

He swivels his hips and I hoot at him. He tries not to grin but he can't help it. I go to him and let him swivel with me pressed up tight to him. He calls this advanced dancing. I am the only one with the real buzz on. Max drank but he never shows it until he's drunk so much he falls over. I've never seen him do that, mind you, but that's what he's told me.

So in this advanced dancing session, he's much more coordinated than me. And he's more serious even if I don't think it's a definitive serious ... I think maybe he's enjoying being physically imposing when I'm loose with champagne and enjoying the difference between our sizes.

All this time he's stripping and I'm holding on to his hips and trying to keep up. But then he picks me up and tosses me down on the bed. When I rise to sit, he is kneeling at the end of the bed, touching the calf of one of my legs.

His hand moves down until he slides the shoe off that foot. I wiggle my toes in relief even as he repeats the movement with the other foot and shoe. 

God.

The next thing I know, he is doing the one thing a man can do for a woman to get her to give him anything he wants from her.

His big hands are flexing over my foot ... fingers digging in, bending and stretching the aching, tired, cramped muscles of my foot ...

Until I am moaning his name and helpless under his massage.

"You are so good," I moan out to him, drawing out the word 'so' for a long time. "No wonder your people said such things about you tonight ..."

He starts in on the other foot. My eyes roll to the back of my head.

"What was said about me?" he asks, his voice incredibly soft and luring me in.

"Mmm. You were off talking to your boss and that Mr. Perkins guy from Homeland Security," I say with a sigh and let my head fall back as I give in to the massage. "Some of your crew were by the bar ... I was chatting ... they said ..."

I plop on my back and gaze at him as he holds my foot in his hands. He could crush it. He isn't looking at me; he's concentrating on my foot.

"They said what?"

"They told me things ... about after the storm. About what you did."

He licks his lips but he doesn't pause in what he's doing. He just keeps on, wordless. I nudge his hand with my other foot; he starts working on that one instead. I wait on him. Finally, his eyes flick up to mine before dropping back to my toes.

"I would wait all my life and you would never have told me," I say to him, my voice soft and seductive. And in this moment, he does look at me ... tough and unflinching. I swallow hard in the face of what I cannot understand or describe. Have I ever loved him before with the depth of this unvarnished look into him right now? "They would have followed you into hell."

"They did follow me into hell," he says quickly.

"They said you never once hesitated when the water suddenly started rising when you were out securing the gate. That you showed no fear. That even when those snipers started shooting the next day ... They said ..." He blinks as I hesitate before going on, resolute, more sober even if I don't know if I'd say this all to him if I were not also buzzed just a bit. "They said Jackie and Robert would have died if you hadn't ..."

He shakes his head at me. Terse. I can't say it. I could picture it when they were talking and that was why I had to go stand by Max later, to touch him, to verify he was there with me, and to drink more champagne because sometimes you can will yourself to let the alcohol make you pleasantly buzzed as opposed to letting sobriety cause your mind to drift where you don't want it to go just then.

By now, his hands are lightly holding my calves. I pull them away from him and sit up, gliding easily into position to cup his face in my hands ... to feel the softness of his beard against my palms and fingers.

"And now ... they would do anything for you ..." He lets my voice break and he lets me have the moment to feel this way. "I would never have made these last few months without you, Max. Tonight, it just reminded me ... I don't know if I've said that ... I don't know if you know how I feel ... I'm just like them ... after what we've been through, I'd follow you into hell because I know you'd bring me back out."

"We made it together, cara," he whispers to me. "We have not lost the capacity for laughter, have we?"

These burdens. Maybe we can't share them. Maybe that's not the point. Sometimes I think maybe I have changed more as a woman in these months with Max than I can realize. But there is something in this night that helps ease Max's burden ... and I can almost touch it but can I ever explain it better than to say that the reflection of himself that he sees in my eyes speaks to him in ways that heal his fate?

Whatever miasma of sadness has flirted with me lately, it lifts with time as I would expect it to. There is something about having your man need you that takes you out of yourself. But it was also fun to sneak out of a first class hotel in the morning, my shoes dangling in my hands, my dress and his shirt wrinkled, tired smiles on our faces and looking for all the world as if we had just shared an illicit night of sex on the run.

On the ride back to Folsom, I find that the drive past Lakeview's atomic bomb landscape doesn't stab me in the gut this time.

Back at our place, I head straight for the bedroom because I want to stretch our dirty night into a lazy, necessary nap for a few hours. Max joins me as I'm almost asleep, nestling into my body. We have the day to ourselves, he whispers in his tired voice. Ralph and Pete are heading to Bogalusa, he tells me, and they will be gone until at least dinner time. I drift to sleep with fractured images of Ralph helping his brother Pete do more salvage work on Pete's hurricane-busted trailer.

When I wake, Max is gone.

I find him in the stable and I watch him for a while. When he notices me, I can tell from his eyes that he didn't sleep as long as he should have and he's working hard when he should be resting. But he is in a playful mood ... we both are. It feels good to be alone, for once, at this place we have adopted and where we are setting down roots.

Coming nearer to him, I apparently invade the space of one of the mares. She gives me the nasty eye she always does when I come near Max inside this stable. I toss my chin in the air in response and crook a finger at Maximus, who has just dumped stuff in her feed trough.

"You look all done in. Come here. Let me see if I can put a smile on your face ... give you some TLC ... How about a little massage?" I say to him, knowing he'll remember the massage session he gave me the night before. He considers this invitation of mine for a fraction of a moment ... and then just unzips his trousers while fixing me with a smart look. "I meant I'd massage your shoulders, Max, not down there! You naughty boy!"

"You sure you don't prefer me naughty? Wasn't it you who was trying to explain to me why women like bad boys...? I was only trying to give you what you really want..."

Oh. Absolutely! We're so near each other that I can reach out ... but before I can, he does ... he takes my hand and shoves it down his unzipped pants.  "So now you think you got bad boy cred, do you, Max? Just because you're shoving my hands down your pants out here in the stable ... where anyone could see us ... except for the fact there's no one around since Pete and Ralph are over in Bogalusa ... Dare you to show me if you really can be a bad boy ... right here and now ..."

Boy oh boy ... the look in his eyes ... he is such a wicked man.

"So, we're all alone, you and I?" He advances on me, slowly, as I back against the stall door near his mare, who snorts and stamps. "Apart from the horses...and they are used to stud duties..."

I glance at the mare ... he strips off his shirt ... his eyes twinkle and I bite my lip.

He says, "So no one is going to turn up and interrupt me whatever I take it in my head to do...?"

I say, "No one ... not for miles around ... you say that like you think you'll scare me ..."

He's got me pinned against the rough wood. I put a hand on his bare chest to push him away; he looks at it with his patented sneer. In response, I take off my own shirt and hand it to him. He holds my shirt in one hand, looking down at it for a moment before very slowly looking up at me, taking his time to study the way my breasts are reacting to him ... how could my body ever lie to him? He runs a finger gently down the line of my jaw, and it feels like nothing so much as the calm before the battle's first onslaught is to begin.

"Are you ready for this....? Those who are about to die....salute you..." he says.

"Shouldn't that be my line?" I say with a gasp at the end because he's already touching me with such pleasure. I open my mouth to say something smart about saluting his flag but the words never come out.

"Madame...you seem to have lost the power of speech... perhaps this will bring it back...." If a moan is speech, then I've made my views known on his power. And he gets down to real business then. My jeans are soon around my ankles, then off ... and his are around his knees. But suddenly, he stops completely ... he cocks his head to the side. "Did that sound like a car engine?"

"That's just my heart beating ... don't stop ... Max ..."

"Can't stop....too far....." he pants out, his attention back totally to me and what I've just done ... but then he hitches me up higher and goes in for the killer blow ...

And for a long time, there's nothing short of an atomic bomb that could distract us. But then ... at some point ... we do actually come back down to earth ... and that's when we both hear it.

A car horn.

Right outside the stable.

When it registers what it is, our heads both jerk up and we look at each other. Who could it be? It isn't Ralph and Pete as they won't be back for hours and, besides, when did they ever honk a horn around here?

So Max disengages from me, leaving me grumbling and leaning against the wood of the stall door. He hikes his jeans up and saunters to the stable door, looks out, then looks back at me. He's frowning.

"Palmer," he says, almost a grunt, as he walks back to where I am and picks up my shirt.

"Palmer?" I ask, way too slow in the uptake as I take my shirt from him. And then my eyes go wide. "Chili Palmer? Chili? He's here? You must be joking ... Oh my God!"

Max is sliding his zipper shut and I'm running around searching for my panties; when I can't find them I drag my jeans up and button my shirt ... and then just burst out from the stable and into the day's sun to find Chili Palmer there, leaning against his black Cadillac and looking so fucking cool that I could do a cartwheel of absolute joy at the sight of him.

It's not until the next day, until after Chili's become the first pub buddy we've told about us getting married, that we confront the mystery of the loss of our ability to get into the Pub ever since Katrina has slammed into our lives.

When Chili comes up with the idea of going on a road trip in search of a way back into the pub, I imagine we all assume we'll just drive to his town to find it. How could we have imagined that some further mystery takes place the first night of our trip? It does, though because it's in Memphis ... on Christmas Eve ... where we somehow find an entrance to the pub in an alley that has disappeared when we finally leave after spending the holiday with our friends from the pub.

Back on the road with Chili as we try to figure another way back to the pub, we greet the new year ... but that night, it is just us three in a town somewhere in Texas. With no Come On Inn around, we toast midnight in bar with five cowboys, the local barber, two Air Force guys from a nearby base and one bartender

In a small motel room in the morning, I wake with the first faint rays of the first day of 2006. How like me. I watch Maximus sleeping next to me. He is an amazing man. What we have together is the best thing that 2005 brought to me. But I am so glad to turn the calendar page and leave that hard year behind us.

Later, I am sitting nude in the room's chair, staring out the shutters at a weak dawn, when I finally hear him rousing to wakefulness behind me.

"Good morning ... it's a new year," I say to him softly as he pads across the threadbare carpet to join me. When we're re-settled, now with me cuddled on his lap, I say, "Wonder what it will bring us, Maximus? I hope for so many things in the year ahead ... but nothing so much as sharing life with you ..."

"Whatever it brings, remember this.....the gods never ask anything of us that we are not able to bear...and sharing life with you suggests that at last the gods have forgiven me for whatever it was they wished to punish me...I believe there is a saying. Things can only get better...for once, I think that is actually the case..."

For once ... and always.

And this is how I follow him into this new year ... by sharing life with him, no matter what it may bring us ... though I believe as he does: that it will be a better year.