August 2005

If you had asked me to describe "Colonial Louisiana Traditional" or "Greek Revival" a few months ago, I would have been as clueless to what the hell you meant as I would have been if you'd asked me to explain why "4 BR 2 BA Extv rmd kitch. Lg lot in demand Uptown" was worth looking at while "3BR 2.5 BA 2 ST single in the Triangle" was not.

Now I know that when I read "lushly landscaped rear and side yards," it means there is no front yard and the back yard is more bricked over patio than grass but it will have lots of bougainvillea, lingustrum and the neighbor's magnolia will make it impossible to grow anything but ferns in the far corner, which isn't that far from the house's edge.

I do know now that I love wraparound porches filled with white wicker furniture and shielded by fabulous greenery but Max doesn't get the appeal. I know that I really hate wood paneling while Max is convinced he should want to have very dark paneling in some room he can take over as his office. He knows that if we step into a house and the walls inside are stucco and painted in marvelous rich hues that swirl and rise, that I will instantly go, "Oooo." He will shrug his shoulders and ask about the plumbing and the security system. But I will always catch that twinkle in his eyes as he looks back over his shoulder, taking in details he has learned to desire because they speak to him of a level of indulgence he wants in a home for himself ... and despite the way he may tease me by pretending otherwise, he likes stucco walls as much as I do, along with that particular kind of crown molding you find only in the traditional New Orleans homes like I grew up in.

It's funny that I never knew I liked fireplaces to look at but that Max would actually expect them to work. I asked him once why he cared since we'd never need them with central heat. He just looked at me.

If he made me wait while he crawled up into one more attic, I'd probably scream. He'd come out sweating, flushed, dirty and wiping his hands as he declared himself either satisfied or dissatisfied with the amount of storage. As if we'd pick a house based on the attic?

I had come to know within a few weeks that a realtor's description of a "sweeping lawn" was not Max's idea of anything worth considering as land. Or that reading the words  "a serene country retreat in the heart of Old Metairie" made Max snort at the effrontery of the description.

What I dreaded most of all was the way Max almost salivated the first time he happened to pick up a realtor's big book of listings and began paging through areas that were not in the neighborhoods we'd agreed to look at. I felt like I'd made a big huge concession to look in Metairie, which to me was a boring suburb filled with sterile houses and no sense of community. So when we were waiting on our real estate lady one day at her office and Max happened to pick up the big binder they left out for people who didn't know what or where they wanted to buy and he gave this low rumble of satisfaction, I knew I was in trouble. I just didn't know how much.

His eyes kind of glazed over and I thought his tongue might fall out the side of his mouth like Buck's does when he hears me rattling the lid of his treat jar. I said to Max, find something you like? He turned the book around for me to see. There were pictures of long, ranch-style homes with great big yards and manicured plantings and lots of space between neighbors. They were everything he might have wanted if we could have found them in the city.

Trouble was, they weren't in the city. They were across the big lake in the gentrified suburbs. I said as much. He said, so? I said, well, if you're gonna be that ridiculous and look on the north shore, then why the hell don't you go all the way and get some estate over there? Some big old place that would be the equivalent to what you had in Spain. A real ranch not just a ranch-style house. He grinned a tiny grin ... as if he was so pleased I was going to be so easy. I grabbed the book, flipped over a few pages until I saw a picture of a place with a barn of some kind, thrust it back to him and said, "Just go for it, Max. If you're gonna look over there, go all the way. Look at places like this. Hell. Don't go half way."

You know, it's funny how life is. It's also funny how stupid I still am when it comes to him. He thought he'd just died and gone to heaven ... and that St. Peter had given him a new woman in his life who would seriously consider moving to the country with him on some horse farm. Okay, well, I'm sure he didn't see St. Peter as he was smugly smiling at the notion I'd become a better life mate; he probably saw Zeus or Apollo and gave them a big thumb's up. Too bad. He was stuck with me.

It rather brought our house hunting to a frustrating impasse. He started lining up visits to see these houses in north shore suburbs. Okay, so they were very nice. Very nice. And it was all very peaceful and sedate. And the houses were new, most of them. And Max liked every one we saw. But I just hated the idea of the commute. Mostly, though, I hated the idea of not living in the city. I hated that in the suburbs you have to drive to go anywhere. And I hated that all my favorite restaurants and cinemas and book stores and haunts and coffee shops and antique stores were all at least 30 minutes away, by car. There was just no way I wanted to live there, no matter how nice the houses were. No matter that the lawns were finally big enough to somewhat satisfy his lust for land.

We each tried to ignore how this was going nowhere fast. Of course, with all of Max's infernal traveling for work, it was stretching on for long frustrating weeks anyway.

Life has its amusing quirks, doesn't it?

And one of them happened in the wake of the Quarter crawl aftermath in July. You remember? That instance of realizing that I was no longer in this life just for me; that I was now in a partnership. When I'd made a mistake that hurt the other member of that partnership. When that partner showed me just how strong he really is and just where he's weakest. He had the strength to see past the hurt and see to what was important: that I took our partnership every bit as seriously as he did. His biggest weakness was always going to be me ... how easily I could wound him if I betrayed his trust in my good heart and my loyalty to him.

In some remarkable display of both insight and need, Max and I took off together for a while. Just really a few days. He'd just made up his mind we were going and we did. We drove up to Natchez, where he'd booked a cottage that his secretary Rebecca knew about. In those days away, there were changes between us. It surprised both of us.

But it centered us both. We had a renewed commitment to our future.

We left there mellow and soft with each other in a way I didn't know was possible before Max. Driving back, I don't think either of us wanted to rush back home. I had to go to work that night, of course, but we just meandered home, taking a back highway through piney woods and a slow pace of life. As we approached Folsom, a tiny dot of a town on the north shore, I knew we were going to be home within the hour. I saw the town's sign and said to Max, "Isn't this where that one place you liked was?"

Meaning ... that first horse ranch that I'd pointed out as a joke in the realtor's listing book and which had caused his eyes to glaze over at the thought of me really wanting to live in a place like that with him.

He gave me a look. It said, "Don't blow this weekend by bringing up a sore subject."

Oh, yeah. All that house hunting had brought the real awareness that we really wanted such completely different things when it came to buying a house. Bringing up any allusion to that after the idyll of the past few days was bound to seem to be inviting the disaster of ending this trip on a sour note.

But I was in such a mellow mood and I wanted a reason to delay our return. Just a few more hours of just us together where everything seemed new and perfect. So I suggested we stop for lunch, get directions from the real estate lady and just drive by the place. Just to see it. Just to drive by and glimpse the ridiculous possibility of a place like that. Just for fun. Just to be amused.

"Okay, now don't give me that look either, Max. I said, let's just run by and see what it looks like. That does not imply that I am seriously considering moving up here, you got me? It just seemed like a fun thing to do ... hey, the meter's running on this offer, Max. It's probably a one-time deal. You best take me up on it while you can ..." I told him, doing my level best to sound firm all the while knowing he read right through me.

"Why do I feel that you've got something planned for me?" he asked, giving me a wry smile even as he bowed his head slightly in my direction. "I will accept your one time offer - but do not hold me to any sense of fair play ... I may very well use dirty tricks to manipulate you to my will ... and I can be very underhanded when I wish to be, my lady..."

Well, and so he can be, of course. But I so love it when he is, of course.

We ate lunch in a tavern on the main drag called Rosie's. Max made fun of my blue collar choice of lunch site. I teased him right back when he made a conquest of Rosie, who couldn't serve him fast enough or often enough. He got that look on his face, the one that says he's about to get me good. He told me how conquering an opposing force was only the first step, and not the most important, for Romans. Nope.

"Next came a much more insidious and yet ultimately more successful strategy," he said, adopting a quasi-stoical look. "Kill resistance by appealing to the subject nation's personal advantage. Make the Roman way appear to be the most desirable way and then offer its blandishments to them all. It is hard to fight a man who offers you everything you have ever desired, merely for the sake of just bowing your head to his will. Stay as you were or join us and live a life of unparalleled pleasure? Can you resist the lure of Rome, Anna? Can she....?"

He chuckled as he finished his little speech. He knew full well I'd be both charmed and fired up by his witty challenge.

So ... Gauntlet thrown. Like I'd let him get away with that.

"Oh, I see how it is now. I hadn't been aware of the Roman use of assimilation techniques." He tilted his head at me, as if to acknowledge his superior techniques. Mmm. A test of wills. Nothing better or more exciting when it's Max who's the opponent. "Well, buddy, you may have just met your match in me. I come from sterner stuff than that and I am no push over ... well, except when you give me that one look you do when you ... Stop that!"

I returned his smoldering gaze, the one that made my knees week.

"I happen to come from a very proud line of people who were never assimilated by any conquering force. No, no, you may use all your considerable wiles on me but now that you have warned me of your true intent, I shall resist you no matter how you ..."

He lowered his chin as he picked up my hand and slowly kissed into my palm.

"Stop!" I hissed out to him even as I felt that funny thing my heart does when he does anything seductive. "Maximus! That's not fair. You know how that gets to me."

My only escape from his clutches was to stumble out of the tavern to call the realtor to get directions to the house in Folsom that Max had liked from the picture book.

After lunch, we drove over to the place. Of course, there was no way it would ever be more than the house-hunting version of window shopping, right? I mean, really, this was an even more impossible commute than the other houses in the suburbs I'd already squelched just by being totally resistant to their many charms.

The real estate lady had called ahead and found out that the family had already moved out of the place. And that there was a caretaker on the property who said we would not be in his way if we wanted to drive right up to the house and just look around the grounds a bit.

It was really far out there in the country. Down one road, then another that was two skinny lanes under a canopy of oaks and sugar maples. Round a huge bend and then hang a left on a gravel road that ran along a split-log fence. And at the end, look to your right for a black-topped lane running along a fence-enclosed pasture. And that was the beginning of the property.

We sat there, at the foot of the black-topped lane, with the car idling as Max stared around him and I wondered what kind of people lived out in a place this far from the comforts of civilization. I looked over to find Max watching me intently. As long as we're here, I said with a soft sigh, shall we go have a look-see? He took my hand, bussed my knuckles gently and said we should get back to the city. But the caretaker had said we could look so let's go have a lark, I said, giving him a warning smile as I added that, after all, it would be a shame to end our day too early.

He seemed almost reluctant to turn the wheel and head up that long drive. I stared around at enclosed pastures and trees along the road as Max focused on a precise approach to a central parking area that was really just a wide, open space between a barn and the house.

Not a barn, he corrected me, it's a stable.

Well, okay then. Next thing, I thought, he'll be teaching me how to shovel manure from a cow stall or something equally farm-specific.

We walked over and glanced into the dimness of the interior of the barn ... er, stable ... I wrinkled my nose at the odor and swatted at flies. I tugged on his hand and suggested we walk around the house. Part way there, a man in hard-lived jeans and a brown, sweat-stained t-shirt rounded the far side of the house. Must be the caretaker, we agreed.

His name was Ralph. He looked anywhere from 28 to 38. He had either lived a very hard life outdoors or had lived a rough life anywhere. Okay, that's not fair, but that was my immediate impression. It was something about the brusque tone he used with us and the way he barely said a word that wasn't absolutely necessary and the way he said it like he was forcing himself to be civil. I was really glad Max was with me; Ralph would not have been someone I'd have wanted to face alone in a dark alley ... or way out here in the boonies.

He and Max sized each other up. They shook hands. Maximus got that snotty look on his face. The one of total disdain. I glanced at their hands and noted the grip was turning each group of knuckles almost white. Ah. Well. Yeah, I can see some yokel yahoo playing macho intimidation games with Max.

After a moment, Ralph said if we wanted to look at the house, to be his guest. Their hands unclinched. I promised we'd not get in his way. He kind of looked down his nose at me, as if until that moment he hadn't even noticed me. As if I hadn't merited being noticed. I felt my chin rise even as I walked off toward the front door. It was open. Inside the front hallway, I paused until Max was with me. I glanced back; Ralph was walking off around the side of the house from where he'd come.

What a piece of work, I muttered. Max just grunted. 

It was such a nice house. I hated that. I mean, it was so nice. Not in an ostentatious way. Just in a peaceful, inspiring way. There was so much light. The back wall of the big living room was made up of banks of windows that looked off into a wooded expanse down a sloping hill. There are no hills in New Orleans so seeing a natural hill, well, it was something I noticed.

The house was warm. Inviting. Open. Expansive. I could picture myself here. I could picture a life here. I don't know why it was that I was struck so instantly like that. For just this moment, I looked around and around the open living room and simply felt taken into one of those daydreams of a life you can almost picture yourself being worthy enough to lead.

Max asked me softly if I liked it. I said yes. Indeed. And how great would it be to find a place like this in the city? He said it would be good but not likely. He makes me laugh when he says something so blunt and unfeeling ... and truthful. I'm not used to people who speak as he does. He hides so much sometimes when he broaches a subject and other times he can be blunt to point of rudeness.

We went upstairs to find three bedrooms and an open loft area with dormers that let in filtered sunlight. It was the most perfect place for an artist's studio. And so it had once been, we realized as we saw the easel and drawing table. One wall was carefully cubbyholed with slits for large sheets of paper; others held canvases of varying sizes and still others held drawers with paints and brushes and all sorts of supplies.

It was so odd, we agreed. The rest of the house still had the most basic of furniture ... seating in the living room, beds and bureaus in the bedrooms ... as if perhaps the owners had left some impersonal objects in here until they could clear the house out or just to give potential buyers the chance to see what it would look like with furniture. But it was devoid of personal touches ... everywhere but in this studio. The contrast was striking and made us wonder aloud why the owners had left this one room looking as if an artist would walk back in, pick up a brush and finish a painting.

Downstairs, we walked through the kitchen and dining room. Max found a room with dark paneling and declared it a den. I figured he was mentally seeing his home office set up here. Next thing I knew, I was picturing him in an argyle sweater, smoking a pipe, slippers on his feet and reading a magazine as he waited on me to bring him a martini after a hard day at work. Shades of Ward Cleaver. I shuddered at the image.

Out back, we stepped onto a wooden deck and descended wooden steps in the sloping hill to a lower deck that surrounded a wonderful, charming pool. I had always dreamed of having my own pool, I told Max. He cleared his throat. I said, oh, I'm not seriously considering this, mind you, I was just thinking aloud.

He wanted to go check out the stable. I encouraged him to go by himself because, I mean, really, can you see me wanting to go smell horse manure up close if I have a choice? I sat in one of the deck chairs and absorbed the sun and the buzz of insects. I might have stayed there forever but I didn't want to get too comfortable. Max might have seen me and begun to get ideas about this place and me. So I wandered back in the house and up the stairs and into the studio.

I am nothing if not curious, am I? But there is nothing quite so personal as an artist's studio. It's not so much what's on the easel as what's around to give inspiration; the hints of how the artist approaches her work; the unfinished pieces that invariably find a cluttered home inside a drawer or piles of cast-off sketch books. I might have felt I was rudely intrusive, like I was rifling through some stranger's underwear drawer, but who was to know?

So I looked all through the cubbyholes. I examined brushes and rulers and erasers and pencil sets. I thumbed through standing canvases because whoever had painted these had a gift that seemed rare and very deep. I found sketchpads on a shelf above the drafting table. I sat at the table, with sunlight coming over my shoulder, and leafed through them. Some held figure studies. Others still life study sketches. Others meandering images of hands and chins and necks ... along with words that meant nothing too much that I could figure out.

In a voice that parted my reverie as if I'd just been slapped, Ralph said, "I'll clear all this out long before you'd buy the place, missus. She'll be wanting all this some day so I was just letting it stay here. Packing it up too soon ... didn't want it damaged in the process. You know?"

"No, not really. But I don't need to know. We aren't really that interested in this place," I said, turning to look at him as he stood in the doorway like a sentry for whatever memories this room held for the past owners.

"Then why you here? Sunday drive?"

I felt myself blush at the way he said that, as if I'd offended him both by snooping in this room and by then having such a nonchalant attitude regarding this house and property. "Oh, I don't know. I think Max needed to see this place and to figure out for himself why it wouldn't be a wise choice for us. We both work in the city. The commute would kill us, you know?"

"Other people up here work in the city. We're not in another country, you know?"

Okay, so that was offensive to him, too. "Sure. I do. But I prefer the city."

"He wants to live over here, though. And you're gonna prove to him what a stupid idea it is."

Jesus. Now I was getting pissed with this twerp. But he still made me off balance. Like I had to explain myself to him. "Well, not quite that ... I mean, it was just ... we were passing through, heading back and I thought maybe we should just see ... just see. He saw this in the book and liked it. But it's not practical. But I just thought maybe he'd like seeing it in person. That's all."

"So you're not really serious about the place. Just killing time."

Okay, now I let my irritation come and help me deal with Ralph. I stood up to leave. "I think I'll just go find Max. He's probably wondering where I am."

My last view of Ralph was as I was heading out of the room and glanced back to find him carefully storing the sketchbooks back up on the shelf where they'd been. The way he handled them was almost with reverence.

On the way to the stable, I looked around at the large expanse of grassy field enclosed by a fence of wood and wire. I could almost picture Max riding a horse there; it would be chestnut brown and sturdy enough for a man like that. I smiled to myself at this flight of irrational thought. I can't weaken on this kind of thing or Max would take advantage, I thought.

And then I stepped into the stable.

Max. Before one of the stalls. His hand, his big loving hand, on the nose of a horse. It was a large, black horse. Max was so lost in thought or memory or dream or wish that he didn't even realize he was no longer alone.

There was a look on Max's face that made me tremble. His faraway gaze took my breath away. I wondered, briefly, what he was seeing, wherever it was that he was looking, that made him smile so serenely.

He is all in my life, and I don't know that this ever can describe him as he is to me. In that moment, I feared what it meant that I was seeing a look upon his face that made my heart leap out and soar.

I would give so much to him. But how much would I be willing to give up?

"Max?" I said softly. He didn't seem to hear. I cleared my throat. "I'm sorry ... we have to go ..."

He turned slowly toward me. Misty eyed, as if he'd been even further away than I could have imagined. His voice was firm and so mellow, all at the same time. A voice I'll remember forever. A moment that will never leave me.

"This is it. Home. A good home," he said. "Close your eyes. Can't you feel it? Can't you smell the place that belongs to us? I want to live here, Ann. But it's up to you. In many ways I can live anywhere. But this would be where I believe our roots could lie."

He didn't want a response from me. He simply shrugged, said no more, and walked quietly out of the stable.

Do you know what he left in his wake? It was me, putting substance to thoughts I'd long examined without understanding why they haunted me so.

I thought of this: all the bad things that had happened to him. All the losses. All the pain. All the hurt. All the things that I was so worried would never heal. All the things that I would like to one day make up to him by helping him to create a life that will be different from that one that he'd once believed was his future after losing his first family. A new future that would give him the same sense of peace he'd once had as he gazed at the future he thought he'd have with his first wife and his son. A future with me that would be as alluring to him as that one. I wanted him to have that specific, unshakable space inside him that knew he was loved with an absolute fidelity that would withstand any test, any time and any space.

In that moment, I sought but did not find the person inside me who could sacrifice my own dreams in order to help his find the future he desired. But did it have to be here that was the foundation of those dreams of his? Or was this just a place? And was it not more reasonable to believe there was a place where both our dreams could be housed? I know, I know. I wish I was able to be the woman who really deserves him.

But he was stuck with me. 

And he loved me, beyond all reason.

If I expected Maximus to badger me over the following weeks into buying the property in Folsom, he proved me so wrong.

We still spent time looking at houses the realtor would find for us. None worked. Max, though, was not the one throwing up objections anymore. I think he would have said "yes" to any of them if I said I wanted them. But I was determined by then to find the right place for us - a place that met his desires and my needs.

I knew it was out there. I just had to find it. And I also knew it was somewhere in the city.

Meanwhile, life went on for us. Mundane, non-consequential. Just life. We worked, which meant Max traveled into Florida a few times and I was still working four nights a week at the paper. I got Buck started in a training class, which meant I met new dog owner friends and found out the best dog-friendly walking areas along the levee. My Mom found a lump, which scared me a lot even when it turned out to not be the Big C. When Max was home, we spent a lot of time exploring areas of the city, which meant he was beginning to understand the vagaries of the various neighborhoods from upper Prytania to Bywater to Lakeview and even the Garden District and lower Clairborne.

It seemed to me that between work, Max, Buck and looking for houses, that I had little other time. I felt busy but in a very pleasant way. I think it's because I was home, in my city, in my place. And, here, in that mix, I had my heart's desire: Maximus to love and with whom I was building a life I very much wanted with him.

Not to say I wasn't still a woman with a rather over-abundant bit of self-reliance and independence. And not to say that I had lost all those inconsistencies and all that tendency to so often take exactly the wrong step when the right one was so much easier.

It never occurred to me to not go looking at homes with the realtor if Max was off on business. But most of the time, I scheduled times when I knew Max would be in town because this was a job for the two of us, I felt. It became part of our routine. And we weren't so much frustrated as we were resolved that all this hunting would actually pay off. My Mom said that surely in a city with so many unique places, the one meant for us would not be difficult to choose so much as waiting for us to find it.

And then one Saturday came to find us trundling along with the realtor into the Marigny, where I'd long since given up any interest because there'd never been one single place that came close to being that place that was right for Max, much less right for us together. She said she just had this one place to show us and then we'd go Uptown.

It was a corner. I don't mean it was on a corner, I mean it was the corner. It had no front yard; it simply began at the sidewalk, which curved around its creamy light green stucco garden wall on one side and met its creamy light green exterior house wall on the other. It had a line of French doors along the sidewalk, like these kind do ... and I wish I knew the right name for it, truly I do. But it is one of those uniquely Marigny homes that look as though they were built by the same people who built the Quarter after the last great fire led to more stucco structures with slate roofs.

I don't know that I said an intelligible word from the moment we stopped at the curb and I said, which one is it, as I looked around for some house I thought she was showing us. When I realized it was this one, I think my mouth dropped open about six inches. That's how perfect the place was. I never thought of this place as ever attainable - it never occurred to me that it would go on the market.

And then we stepped inside. Wide open bottom floor ... a living room that looked out banks of more glass French doors to an overhanging canopy sheltering a bricked patio. And beyond the patio ... the largest expanse of green space ... it could have been a pocket park. There were even trees that rose tall over the second story balcony that ran the expanse of the back of the house and looked serenely over this green space.

I was so used to Max examining the practical things like plumbing that I didn't realize he was letting me hold on to his arm as we moved through the rooms and up the stairs and through the sunlit master suite up there and down the hall into rooms that could be guest bedrooms or a den for him or a writing space for me. Back downstairs to check out the kitchen that had been modernized by the seller only a few years earlier.

The realtor asked what we thought of the place and I just nodded. Max asked where the next house was for us to see and we left for the car but not before I just stood on the sidewalk and looked around and imagined us living there.

For days after that, I tried to not be too excited. Max had not seemed as overwhelmed and, in point of fact, seemed to get this house confused with one we'd seen a few weeks earlier over in Metairie. Of course, the houses were nothing alike and this told me that my Marigny house, the home of my dreams, had not made much of an impression on Max.

I took my mother by to see the place. I made her come with me and try to peer in the gauze-curtained French doors along the sidewalk but we could see little through them that was distinct. Over lunch at a little bistro nearby on Esplanade, we talked about the house and about why I didn't just tell Max that this was the one that I wanted.

And at some point, it became obvious to me why I didn't. Because I wanted him to want it as much as I did ... only then would I feel like it was destined to be our house. Otherwise, it was just a compromise. So much in marriage is a compromise, my Mom said. But I don't want him to do this just for me, I told her, because it's not right that he not have a place he really wants since he's the one who really wants to buy a house.

That night, I lay in bed, wrapped around his back as he slept. And I thought about this issue of compromise. I wondered just how much he'd had to compromise all his life. When I viewed his life as a Roman, to me he was rarely his own man. He was following rigid societal strictures or he was living up to expectations of his family's belief in their own position or he was obeying the orders of the Emperor or he was guided by a rigid spiritual path toward Elysium. Sure, I knew that where he could exert his considerable will and get his own way that he had ... but hadn't it been within careful boundaries?

And that night, with my forehead resting on his spine, I closed my eyes and thought of how much he'd suffered, how much he'd lost, how hard he'd worked for that life in his country that he'd so longed for. All it was for him: his estate, his wife, his son, his hoped-for future children, his legacy. His peace. His joy. His place.

After all he'd gone through, why should he have to compromise now? If I loved him, why would I want him to compromise? Already for me, he'd given up so much.

Didn't I know what he really wanted? Couldn't I make that place in Folsom come true for him? Shouldn't doing that actually bring me a greater joy and a greater peace than just about anything I could think of?

Why couldn't I join the army of commuters if he could live in the one home that had really touched his heart and satisfied his every desire for a place in which to stake his claim in this world?

After he left for work in the morning, I stopped in to see the realtor. Max and I had already signed all sorts of financial forms to pre-qualify us for any type of financing and to do the requisite credit checks and all the other humdrum things that go along with this kind of scary adult action. So I knew that while what I wanted to do would catch the realtor by surprise, I also was sure it would be very doable.

"I want to make an offer on the property in Folsom," I told her, sliding the property information sheet across so she'd see which one I meant. "I want to surprise Max. This is the place he wants but he's probably not going to believe me that I am willing to move there. So I want him to see, to have proof, that I want this as much as he does."

She cleared her throat. "You want to make an offer? On this place? In Folsom?"

I grinned and relaxed. "Yeah. I know. I said it had to be in the city but ... but you should have seen him there. It had a real impact on him. And it is nice. It's very nice. And I know I'll get used to the commute even if I bitch about it forever. Because we all have to have something to bitch about, right?"

"And Max doesn't know that you're doing this?"

"No. I want to surprise him. Can we just put in an offer and see if they accept? And if they do, then I'll drag Max in here to do the final paperwork to get the sale going. Because of course, he'll have to sign stuff and all to finalize it. And ... why are you looking at me like that?"

"I'm not sure this is really wise. I think maybe you should talk to him first. After all, if they accept your offer, you are committed to the purchase or you lose every bit of the earnest money you have to put up to show your offer is serious enough to bind them to the contract."

"You know this what he wants. You've been out with us often enough to know that this is just so perfect for him. He hasn't really liked anything we've seen here in the city."

"Yes, I know that's true but ..."

"Then let's do this."

"There's something you need to know first though ..."

It took three hours before I left the realtor's office. Ten minutes later, the guard at the port's administrative gate let me through to the parking area. And maybe five minutes later, I was standing in Rebecca's office. Or rather, I was pacing in her office. I was waiting on Max to get off a conference call so that she could let him know I was there. I don't know who was more relieved ... me or her ... when she was finally able to usher me into his inner sanctum.

As she softly shut the door behind her, Max was on his feet, neatening up the paperwork on his desk, giving me a perplexed look and trying not to frown even as he came from around the desk to take my hand in his and lead me to a couch along the wall.

He asked why I was there ... well, I think he asked it in a much more roundabout and polite way but the message was: what the heck are you doing here when I got work to do?

I started pacing again. He sat on the couch and watched me. Finally I stopped, sank against the edge of his desk. I said, "Max, the concept of place is important to us both, as I've only come to really realize very recently. You came here because of me. You know what this city means to me. It simply means ... it's home but it's more than home ... it's a part of me, of who I am. There is no place on this earth like it."

"Perhaps every person should have a place like that," he said softly, smiling at me before clearing his throat. "Whatever the reason for your visit, Anna, could the discussion not wait for this evening when I'm home with you?"

My eyes dropped to my shoes so I could concentrate. "No, actually, it can't, Max. There are things I need to say before I tell you why, though. Like ... well, I always am struck by how you've sacrificed for me by coming here."

"I do not define it as a sacrifice. It was a choice. It was my choice. It gained me much, cara. It gained me you," he said softly.

"Do you have any idea of how good you've made my life, Maximus?" I said, equally soft, and now looking in his eyes even as he rose and came to where I was. "I want us to have a home that is a place where we stake our future and where we set down our roots and where you have a passion for place that at least equals mine for this city."

His hands touched at my face and he was warm. "Anna, we will find that place, I promise you."

"That's just the point, Max. We have already found it. I've put a down payment on the property in Folsom. The place where you knew we should sink our roots."

His eyes did that wonderful thing only they do ... the run of emotions that I may not always know how to interpret but that I do know as a part of Maximus that I adore. "I do not understand. You could not ... the property in Folsom? How is that possible?"

"Well, I made an offer. They accepted. To bind the offer, I had to put up earnest money ... so I ... well ... I emptied my bank account, Max. It was the only way possible. But we have to go to the realtor's today, this afternoon, and sign papers. Well, I've already signed a bunch but you have to co-sign ... because, I mean, you're going to end up paying a lot more than me because, well, you said ... Max? Are you okay?"

"Anna ..." He sounded like he didn't know whether to be elated, frustrated or angry with me.

"It's okay, Max."

"But I had already ... you should not have done this ..."

"Max," I whispered, my hand on his stricken face, "It's okay. It really is. I know what you did. I know you'd put in an offer for the Marigny house last night. I know you were doing that for me. Because you thought I wanted that house. I know ... and I am so very touched. More than I can say."

"You loved that house. I saw it on your face. I wanted to get it for you ... cara," he said, shaking his head at me. "What have you done?"

"I had the realtor lose your offer. I did it for us. Because I might have really liked that house but the one in Folsom has the sense of place I think we need."

"It is not for you to make such a sacrifice for me," he said, his voice rather tough, his body language suddenly more rigid. "I wished to buy you the house you desired."

"It isn't a sacrifice for me, Max. It's a choice. I made a choice ... I want to be a part of that future you can see for us ... I cannot tell you how much I love being with a man who can feel a sense of place as you felt it there in Folsom."

"But it is not where you wish to live."

"I can live anywhere as long as it's with you."

"That is not what you said last week."

"Yeah, well, I can be a pain, can't I?"

And I think this is when it hit him. That what he wanted was being given to him on a silver platter. I held his face in my hands and watched him absorb this. That the dream he'd sublimated in order to give me what he thought I wanted was now going to be coming true for him. That I wanted him to keep on dreaming.

"You would do this for me?" He bent near me. Our lips grazed upon the other. His husky voice said, "You spoil me."

Oh. No, of course I don't spoil him. Of course I lead him a ragged life. Imagine how ill-suited we are to be together?

Another man might have bent me over his desk and ravaged me in that moment. But Max showed his ardor through his obvious restraint. I could feel his heart beating, my hand on his chest. I could hear his breathing, that shallow way he has when he is concentrating on both controlling his physical reaction and wanting me to see he is having to work very hard to do so. And even though he kissed me as if he would take me to places only he ever could, he was not hard as I learned when my hand brushed over his groin. With another man, perhaps that would disappoint me; with Max, it pleases me as it is just so "him."

In the end, we teetered there together at the edge of his desk, barely holding each other.

He'd wanted to surprise me by secretly buying the Marigny house he knew I'd fallen for.  Just knowing he'd done that, when the realtor told me that morning that Max had come in the night before to put in that offer, just to know ... to have one more testament to the way he loved me ... to feel more precious and more special than any man had ever made me feel ... he'd found the way to do all that.

In the end, though, it was very much a two-way street. I was pretty sure that I'd found the way to show I knew not just what he wanted but what I was willing to do for him.

"Max, there's only one problem ... you have to come with me now ... to the realtor's ... to finalize this."

"I have a meeting, Anna. I cannot possibly ..."

"Oh. But ... see, the thing is ... Well, the thing is that if we don't get over to the realtor's office right now and have you co-sign the paperwork ... well, we'll never be able to buy the house on only my name ... all that I have in the bank went for the earnest money to hold it and ... well ... oh, this is embarrassing for me to admit ... but, if you don't come co-sign things, I'll lose every cent I put down on the place in Folsom and I'll just be flat broke."

I drove to the realtor's. We signed papers. Lots of them. All these contingencies ... inspections of the property that would have to be made ... sale documents ... insurance and so many others I lost track. It would take about a week for all the paperwork and inspections and insurance things to be legally filed, completed, blessed and saluted. Things were greatly expedited because Max was going to pay cash from his savings, the money he'd been squirreling away during all those years of frugal living.

For days, I fretted silently over my depleted checking and savings accounts. I'd emptied everything into the earnest money to start the legal process to buy the house. And that meant that while I had found a way to contribute to the purchase of the house, I hadn't done it very wisely. Then again, it rather made the whole thing more "me" in its own special way.

I was still me, after all. I could make a grand gesture but then refuse to take the easy route of asking Max, who really could spare it, to give me a bit of cash to tide me over until I was able to start scrimping and saving to refill my bank account. Finally, though, I took a deep breath and went to talk to my banker about getting a loan so I'd at least have a bit of money in the account to keep checks from bouncing.

Yeah, I know ... well, I am still me.

But, then again, Max is still Max.

Is it really possible we're going to make a go of this? What are the odds, do you suppose?

When I told my Mom what I'd done, she said I was a fool in love. But she was smiling when she said it. She adores Max. She can't wait until we get married because she's pretty sure I'm going to blow it if it doesn't happen soon. She figures once we're married, it's more a sure thing than it is now.

She said to me, "First you tell me you're getting the place you said you'd never let him talk you into. Next thing I know, you'll tell me you've decided to get pregnant like he wants."

"Oh, sweet Lord. As if!"

"Never say never."

"Mom, I always thought you had such clever expressions. You're disappointing me with something so trite."

"Okay, I'll remember how trite I am next time you ask me to make you up some crawfish etouffe."

"Oh, well, in that case, I take it all back. Every bad thing I've ever said about you."

"Sure, sure. Like I'd ever believe you. You know what I think? I think I can't wait 'til you're a mother. Your kids are gonna be a handful. And then you'll come pleading with me to forgive you for what you put me through when you were a child, missy."

"You know what they say ... never say never."

Well, maybe someday. Some far distant day. A day that will come, but not for a while. I want to live just for us right now and I think Max does, too. We've talked about it the last few weeks and I think we're in the same mind on that score. I know he wants a family and wants one with a sureness that both impresses and intimidates me. But he says he wants this to be something we do when I'm ready. And I'm not. Not now. I need time. I have so much I still want to do, so much I want us to do first.

And time, for once, is something we have and something we spend as if it never ends. It is a wonderful way to live. It's a way of life that neither of us is truly used to living.

Time.

It's our time now. 

My only concern now is this: how do I tell him that I'm afraid of horses now that he's dragging me up into the country to live on a horse farm? And I refuse to ever drive one of those horrid old trucks everyone drives in Folsom. And do you suppose he was serious when he said he wanted to plant figs and grapes in that one field that races along the bayou? I mean, next thing you know, he'll want me baking my own bread and planting a rose garden. Actually, I could maybe get into roses. Did I say that?