Even now, I cannot grasp the immensity of everything that we've lost. I cannot stop trembling at the oddest times. I cry when someone puts ice in my drink. I feel shell shocked when I realize there are no lines at the gas station on the corner. Every mound of refuse takes my breath away. Fields of 2x4s smashed and strewn as far as the eye can see still haunt my daydreams. News images of bloated bodies, floating face down in canals I have driven along since childhood, are seared into me. Landmarks flooded, burned down or swept off their pilings leave me in mourning for the city of my birth. I will never be the same.

I will never forget.

Please, Lord, don't let me forget the future I thought I had. Just let me get over the grief I feel that I will never have it because I really did want it.

If I hear one more person say, "I want my life back" in that shocked whisper as they come out of a vacant stare, I think I will sink to my knees and never rise again.

No matter how many years go by, we will never quite have back the way it was before the storm in the city that defines us. It is as if a generation's immediate past has been wiped off the face of this region and all its favorite keepsakes have been swept into the dustbin of memories that you can never understand how they are not still current views as you drive along streets you've known forever.

It's just endless, the things that we will never have back.

We are so broken. How will we ever heal? How will we ever get over this disaster?

There isn't a person I know who doesn't wake up at night, cold and clammy, eyes staring straight up at the ceiling ... numb with the fright of not understanding what we shall do now that the future we were building has been taken from us in the gasping hours of only one day.

Everywhere I go, everywhere I look, when I see people like me, refugees of this storm, I recognize them. It's because they have the tendency to blink, leave the conversation and then you see their 50-mile stare. It's as if they are trying so hard to keep moving on and then something switches inside their brain, and they just get lost inside as the immensity of the struggle ahead of them makes them blank out for a little while.

Still, we go on. What else can we do? We say, "We are going to rebuild" as if we dare you to say we're not ... but we are scared it won't happen. We find reasons to laugh, reasons to celebrate, and more than anything, reasons to rejoice in what we have managed to save of our Mardi Gras spirit even while we fear something intrinsically has been lost in our unique way of life.

Those 50-mile stares ... the way you snap out of one and realize, guiltily, that you don't want anyone to think you're feeling sorry for yourself. Not when so many others have it so much worse than you do. At least I have a house, even if I'm not living there for a while. So many don't have anything left. So many have died. So many are missing. So many have lost hope and faith. I have faith. It's gritty, and it's mine.

I am tired all the time. We all are. It's an exhaustion of the refugee. Despite what they say is the politically correct word, I am a refugee of Katrina. Until I am home again, until my life is returned to me, I believe I will feel like I am a refugee.

Now, more than a full week past the hurricane, I spend my days trying not to do anything but what is right before me. If I think even five minutes into the future, I get scared.

If I think in the past, I will scream and scream.

Floating in and out of every single moment is this one thought: where is he? Oh, God. Where is he?

In the immediate days after Hurricane Katrina, I was at the place in Folsom. Conditions were so primitive. I was surprised by how little I cared. Not a lot penetrated once I got beyond the shock of the immediate destruction. We had no power, no running water, no phones. And there was so much to be done. It often seemed hopeless except we worked well together as a team.

Ralph was our leader. Somehow, in this landscape of post-disaster simplicity, no one argued ... we just did what he pointed out needed doing. No one complained but we did commiserate on the unbearable heat. I kept wondering how the people trapped in attics and on rooftops in New Orleans were standing this heat. At least we had places we could go, under trees, where it was shady. At least we had bottled water and hurricane supply food stuff.

At least we had generators.

One was set up to power a minimum of items in the house that made us feel as if we were not quite as barbaric as we were living. It ran a few lamps, a great fan and a small fridge that we carted over from Ralph's apartment.

The other was set up to run the pump out by the stable so we could keep the horses watered.

What we didn't have didn't seem that important ... except ice. We craved ice. That small fridge held food we wanted to keep from spoiling as long as we could. That left no room for ice to cool the water and soft drinks that we poured into ourselves as we sweated through long days of harsh work in the sun and heat.

In many ways, the overabundance of physical work saved me. Without it, I would have had a mind free to do nothing but worry because I could not reach Max to find out how he was and to let him know we were okay.

The days were split into neat chunks. In the morning, we cleared trees from the drive and then from the road, methodically forging a path big enough for a car to make it to the main highway. It took two days of dogged work because Ralph wanted it done safely. He was right; we couldn't afford any injuries because we couldn't get out to get help if something happened to one of us.

There was only the one chainsaw to use to cut the trees. I never touched it; I was relegated to clearing out logs and even that was a concession on Ralph's part ... he was of the opinion that I should have stayed at the house helping my mother clean and cook and keep order in our lives.

Breakfast was warm boxes of juice and a granola bar with some quickly deteriorating fruit. Lunch was hurricane supplies and soft drinks that, even warm, tasted more welcome than the finest champagne by the time we sprawled around the table. Dinner was out of cans my Mom opened and put on our plates, arranging them carefully to make it seem more appetizing. We were too exhausted to care by then.

Afternoons were spent caring for the horses and patrolling for snakes that were dangerous for all of us if we didn't shoot them first. Late afternoons were devoted to more cutting and clearing, in the seemingly endless attempts to carve a way out of the property so we could actually get out and find out if the rest of the world existed. Evenings were for repairs that were absolutely necessary and chores like filling the generator up for the evening's use.

After dark, we listened to the news and watched television as long as we could stand it. I stood it much longer than anyone else. In fact, if I could have, I probably would have watched round the clock, looking for any hint of what Max might have been facing.

They showed us the video the second night of men pulling people from roofs and attics in the flooded sections of the city. It was an area of the city not all that far from where Max should have been. I wondered if he was out there, saving lives. But no matter how much I willed them to show me his face, they never did. What we saw of the city degenerating into animalistic chaos took us all into a silent, disbelieving place inside ourselves that tried to reconcile this with the community we'd known.

The third day, we had cut far enough along the road, clearing trees, to where we hooked up with neighbors doing the same thing we were. Together, we cut through the remaining trees blocking us all from the highway. And then if we'd wanted, we could have driven off into the unknown. Instead, we stood at the highway and gazed at more destruction. Most power poles we saw were down or listing. A lot of transformers were in the ditch that ran along the highway. Even though someone had already cleared a path on this main artery, it was strangely devoid of traffic.

I rode back to the house on the back of an ATV that Pete drove. From my perch, I kept seeing things I'd missed no matter how long I'd been staring at the wreckage of the landscape.

That night, I had a nightmare that shook me. I still think that if the phones had been working and I'd heard his voice just once, then I'd have been fine. Instead, I so often found myself deep inside my fear for I'd not really stopped being afraid since all this began. The nightmare that night, though, was so specific.

I saw Max stumbling up the road where we'd cleared that day. I saw his face, the haunted look from his film when he'd crossed burned fields that he'd dreamed of harvesting but instead was traversing to find his family murdered. Only in my dream that night, it was not charred earth he rushed over. It was earth covered ankle deep in shredded leaves, maple branches, pine needles and cones far too green to belong anywhere but up in their trees.

He sees the stable first, the oak tree he will remember, it's uprooted. He sees the house next. The tarps are gone and the trees that crashed in are still there. He will see no evidence of life. He thinks the worse. The look on his face ... the slack mouth that cannot call my name ... He falls to his knees.

I woke in cold terror.

As I lay there, I hoped he was somewhere safe worrying about me. I refused to believe he hadn't survived. No, I told myself, the bigger problem was that no news was coming out of our area ... I hated thinking of his big heart worrying about us, imagining the worst in the absence of any news at all.

In the morning, I got a more immediate reason to worry as I poured my mother a glass of water from one of the jugs we'd brought with us. She was wearing a wet washcloth on her neck. She was listless; she said she just hadn't slept well. It was way too early for her to be this hot. I touched her face. She felt clammy.

This was the day that Pete and Ralph were going to make a trip into town to see what they could find out. I decided that my Mom needed to go along, so she could sit in the air conditioning of the car. The four of us ended up piling into my car and venturing out.

I had another impression of us as survivors of an atomic blast. Nothing made sense that we saw. It was too much to take in; if it was this bad here, with trees down and stores not open and roofs damaged and even the traffic lights out ... what about the areas harder hit? We found civilization was going on but it was very sober out there where already the hordes of tree cutters and renegade roofers were descending on us from out of state, here to see what quick bucks they could make. You take your chances with crews like that. Thankfully, we had Ralph and Pete ... I don't think they'd be taken advantage of and I know they watched out for us.

The local fire station was the center of activities. Ralph and I found our way forward. He asked about gas, water, ice and FEMA coming in to help restore power. A deputy told him there was water and ice in Covington, but the route there would be slow. And there was no gas station working anywhere in the area ... with no power, there was no way to pump ... maybe Baton Rouge was the closest gas, the deputy said, but he didn't sound hopeful. Ralph asked about the nearest working phone; the deputy snorted and said to try Baton Rouge; no service anywhere in this vicinity and no telling how long until we'd get it back with all the lines down all over.

I asked about the road to New Orleans, so I could get into the newspaper building. The deputy told me there was no way in; the city was closed off. We had already known the bridges on the other side of the parish were destroyed. But the Causeway? Shut, he said, except for disaster vehicles. What about the roads to Baton Rouge, I asked him, are they clear. He told me to stick to the state highway and I'd make it.

We decided it was worth it to use our limited gas to go down to Covington and find where the National Guard was giving ice and water and MREs. As we drove through the line, I tried not to cry but it was more than I could deal with. We are the disaster everyone else in the world is reading about, I realized. I never thought it'd be us in this position. I felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude for the help we were getting. Ice, water and hot food ... manna from heaven ... delivered by young men from Oklahoma wearing green khakis and carrying M-16s.

Back at the house, we regrouped as we splurged with ice in our soft drinks. I needed to think about my varying responsibilities. I felt my mother was the priority and her health was not going to take much more of the heat. Getting her out of the primitive conditions was first order of business, I told Ralph. We agreed that I should drive her into Baton Rouge in the morning, leave her with her friend so she'd be living in a house with clean water, working power, and open stores nearby for everything she'd need.

What else, I remember asking Ralph, as if he could prompt me on what other things I needed to deal with. I looked down at Buck, my shadow. I thought of how proud Max would be that Buck was taking his responsibility toward me so seriously. He'd already saved me from two snakes.

Max.

I had no idea how to find Max. If I could get into the newspaper office in the city, maybe I could find a way. If I could get to a working phone line in Baton Rouge, I could call him. Except I doubted phones there in New Orleans were working any better than here.

Into my train of unfocused thoughts, Ralph asked about the house, the stable, the trees ...  about repairs, about insurance and FEMA, about how I wanted to handle it all. I don't know, I said, you tell me what should be done. It's your place, he said. It took a while for it to dawn on me that what he meant is this: it would take money to go get supplies, if he could find them, to do whatever repairs he and Pete could do ... and to hire contractors to do things like the roof and replacing windows. It would, in fact, take money to keep a lot of things going ... like gas for the generator, food for the horses ... and the money had to come from me.

I don't have any money with me, I told him. He just looked at me, in his eyes the message: you evacuated without cash? And not only that, I thought to myself, I have no way to even get any. I was flat broke; the loan I'd been arranging with my banker hadn't been approved by the day I evacuated for the storm, so I had nothing but maybe a few hundred dollars. It wasn't nearly enough. I told Ralph I'd think of something.

The next morning, my mother and I left before the sun rose. We had all her gear settled in the back of Pete's small pickup truck. I was taking only a suitcase and my laptop. I made Ralph promise to take care of Buck for the two days I expected to be gone. We were both unable to care that we were crying for some reason as we said goodbye. It felt like I was abandoning them. I promised to fill the truck with supplies when I returned. Truth was, I didn't really know what awaited us in Baton Rouge. But someone had to make a move and it was us.

My mother and I were sober, silent as we approached Covington. For some reason, I remembered there was a bureau for the newspaper south of Covington ... it was right on the main highway. I stopped there; pounded on the door until someone opened it. That's how I found out two things: the newspaper had evacuated to Baton Rouge when the flooding started and they told me the best back route there.

It was easy from there to make it to where I'd leave my Mom. While there, I used the phone to try to call Max. Nothing. Ringing that went on forever.  I called the number for his headquarters in Los Angeles that he gave me once. I was hoping they would have some word by then. They wouldn't tell me a thing and I suppose I was expecting it because they're so security oriented; and unless I was his next of kin or his wife or something official they had in his file, then there was no way they'd tell me anything.

I was defeated, numb. I don't know why I didn't fight for help. I should have done something but I gave up. The only thing I did was ask them to give Max a message from me if they did hear from him - to tell him I was alive. I felt so pathetic. I was so tired. I couldn't cry. I was too far inside. Too numb. Trying to just deal with this. This too shall pass, I said to my Mom as I left her there.

One hour and horrific traffic later, I pulled into the parking lot of the building where the newspaper's main office was being housed. Inside, it was like a war zone. Wall to wall people but yet nobody seemed to be working like we used to.

I wandered until I found my boss in a conference room along with a bunch of other people stretched around trying to carve out work space and just get things done. When can I get back to work, he asked me when I told him about having to go back to Folsom to bring supplies.

This ended up being how I got back to doing some semblance of my job. I raced around, getting all the supplies Ralph and Pete had asked for, using a credit card that I hoped I'd soon have money to pay for all I was charging on it. My last stop was a bank so I could cash a check in my name, so Ralph would have funds to take care of emergency repairs.

It's hard to say more. I went deeper inside myself from the moment I got into work the next evening after driving straight through from Folsom. It's all I could do to cope with what I saw, what I heard ... and what I didn't know. I didn't do anything but work and sleep for days after that.

Every single day, I called Max's numbers over and over; I never got through. It seemed to me that the question flashed through some part of my body constantly: where is he?

I never stopped making myself believe that Max was alive and out there, somewhere, doing his job ... and probably a whole lot more than his job, I told myself. I imagined him everywhere a hero stepped forward to save a life or stop a crime. I pictured him in a helicopter, saving lives. I saw him in boats, too many to even count, everywhere a rescue was happening, in far too many places to be real. I saw one aerial shot of the port, all the trailers tossed like toys. I tried to forget that image but it would sneak into the edges of my memory at the worst moments.

Then at some point, I became so numb that nothing penetrated to that place inside myself where I kept vigil for Max. I didn't dare let anything inside there because it was where he was safe. And where I could be okay. So I protected it; I hid it away where nothing could touch it no matter how much bad news came out of New Orleans.

The times that were the worst were when I was supposed to be sleeping. Thoughts that invaded my defenseless dreaming were too much, too hard, too raw, too wrong. How do you go on, not knowing if the one person you live for is alive or dead? How do you pretend he's fine when you see so much evidence that he probably isn't? How do you sleep when you're dreaming images of leaves with his blood on them and of dirty flood water that you fear hides something that even in your dreams you can't face?

Everyone around me, they mistook my numbness for strength. They would say to me that they didn't know how I kept so composed. They thought I was conscious but the truth was, I was just trying to survive. What else could I do?

I can remember feeling this way. I am surprised that time elapsed without making an impact on me. How many days were spent in this twilight where I couldn't feel but could still hear other people's pain?

It all stopped for me late one night, when we were all trudging through yet another round of putting the edition to bed, our skeleton crew that could not do all we might have been used to but nonetheless churned it out like it was a mission from God.

"You have a visitor," a voice from the security desk told me, calling me on the phone that sat on the table that stood in for the city desk.

"Who is it?" I asked him and why didn't I wonder who was there at that time of night?

"Big guy. ID says Max Cooper. You want me to send him away or send him ..."

I dropped the phone. Michael from the copy desk asked me something but I was already out of the conference room and running down the stairs to the next floor ... to the reception area ... to where the only person who mattered to my future was waiting on me ... the one person who could make me feel anything again.

In my mind, I have a memory of his face the moment we saw each other. His blank, 50-mile stare turned to recognition and then regret, fear. There was no joy in him, though, and I can't explain why ... or why I didn't feel joy to see him either. What I felt, what I imagine he felt, was so much deeper than that.

I would like to say that I raced across the space in that reception area until I flew into his arms. It would even be nice if I could say that we met halfway, flinging ourselves together in some mad, passionate embrace.

The truth is, I don't know what happened in the immediate moments after I saw him and he saw me. I do think, though, that I did not run to him. I think he caught me before I sunk to my knees, my body collapsing in the one moment of realizing he was alive after all.

I do know this: we held each other. My arms were around his neck and his arms were around my back. I stood on my toes. Our faces were buried in each other's neck.

And we did not so much as whimper. No words. No whispers. No groans. No supplications. No laughter. No nothing. Just silence, too deep, too wide, too far-reaching. Just holding each other. And breathing.

Oh, it's so hard to remember. I can't explain it. I guess it's because then, only then, it was all real. All that had happened to us. And we'd been apart when maybe we'd most needed to be together.

Whatever was taking place outside the two of us seemed to be in another dimension. I did hear a man's voice call him "Cooper" and I felt that man's hand shake Max's shoulder. When Max released me, he rubbed his face against my cheek, softly ... I felt dampness and knew he had given in to tears ... but only a bit. He wasn't sobbing. Just teary-eyed. My own vision was clear, which surprises me. Our eyes locked as we released each other.

He introduced me to this other man, who held Max's valise before handing it over. His name was Robert. He'd driven Max in to Baton Rouge, to find me. He was leaving, anxious to be on his way back into the port in New Orleans.

I introduced Max to the city desk people. They insisted I leave; we were maybe two hours away from closing down for the night under our abbreviated production days. I didn't need to hear it twice.

Outside, in the darkness, I led Max along two rows of cars in the lot before I remembered where I'd parked.

"What is this?" he asked me, softly, as if he could tell I was rattled and didn't want to make it worse for me.

"I'm borrowing Ralph's brother's truck," I said. It'd been, what, nine days since I'd seen Max? How much had changed? Too much. I'd had to make do, make decisions, find a way to get things done. I had always pretended to myself that I was just buying time until Max was there and he could tell me what he thought should be done. But the truth was, I'd just had to do some things that he would not have anticipated. Still, I had been resourceful. Using Pete's truck was just an example.

"Where are you staying?" he asked me, coming to where I stood at the driver's door, fumbling with keys that I couldn't quite figure out.

"I'm sharing an apartment with five other people from the paper. Half of us work day, half evening. We take turns sleeping in the bedrooms. It's not ideal ... but ... at least I have a place to stay here."

His hand came over mine just as I got the key in the lock and turned it. I don't know why I wasn't holding him. He put his arms around me. I was facing the car. My back was to him. This was not how I thought I'd feel in this moment, our first second alone. I closed my eyes to concentrate on relaxing.

What I sensed in him was fatigue ... giving in to it, finally, after too many days ... able to give in only because he was with me. Something like that used to touch me right in the gut; I think it did then ... but I couldn't feel it. It's hard to explain.

He held me like that for long seconds. I could feel his chest as he breathed. I felt his breath in my hair; I imagined he was absorbing my scent ... familiar, good smells after all the horrible, decaying odors of New Orleans since the hurricane.

We didn't really speak the whole drive. To this day, I am not sure why we were both this way. Maybe we were too intense. Maybe we both were feeling our wounds. Maybe we just felt secure enough to be whatever way we felt, without having to pretend some joviality we didn't feel. Probably not, though.

It was just ... off. And I was still numb. Still concentrating on the moment, refusing to scare myself by looking into the future. Shut down. And feeling a lot older, a lot less free, a lot more weighed down. And cataloging all the mistakes I knew I'd made in trying to do the right thing in this mad time ... Max would have done everything with skill and without hesitation. He would have simply shrugged off the primitive conditions and the lack of information. If only he'd been there ... if only I'd not been consumed with death all this time ... imagining his, seeing all the other death, taking it all in, unable to process anything because worry over him blocked it all. Why then, when he was here and all that should have dissolved, why was I unable to switch gears?

He held my hand in the elevator, caressing my palm with his thumb, and moving closer as we neared the fourth floor. I shuffled my feet and couldn't quite look at him.

Inside the apartment, I hesitated upon entering, standing there uncomfortably in the entry hallway, unsure what to do. He touched my elbow. I looked back at him as his big hand dropped to circle my wrist. He leaned against the door as he shut it. Dropped his bag even as he tugged me up into the nest of his body. His lips rested against mine. I tried to feel his kiss but I couldn't. I tried to feel his hands as they pulled me into his body. I tried to do my part but ... I couldn't feel his spirit and I felt so awkward. He moved into me, taking a step then two until he pressed me in against the wall in the skinny hallway. I said something like, "Wait." He said something like, "Be with me."

No.

That's not what he said.

I can't remember what he said.

Isn't that awful of me?

Maybe I wasn't even bothering to listen.

Here, I'd done nothing but yearn to know he was alive and now he was with me and I cannot remember what he said.

But I do remember that I heard a noise inside the apartment and I pushed him off of me. I know I was blushing and that I was looking down at the floor and that I said to him that we couldn't do that, not there, not with others around, not if we weren't alone.

Several of my roommates were in the kitchen, cleaning up and comparing notes on what they'd heard that day from the handful of our reporters still in the city. I introduced them to Max. The woman I shared a room with offered to take the couch so we could have the room instead that night. I almost said that was okay, that Max would take the couch, but I realized that was wrong; of course I wanted to sleep in the same bed as him. I just felt like I was slogging in water.

Everything I said to Max that night was like I was talking so politely to some guy I'd just met. He was hungry; I fixed him steak, asparagus and green beans. He said it was the first non-MRE he'd had in over a week. I sliced him up tomatoes, carrots and lettuce for a salad ... he looked so weary when he smiled as I slid the bowl toward him. He stroked my hand. I didn't feel it.

Two of my roommates hung out with us while Max ate. We all asked him questions ... what had he seen, what had it been like for him, what had he found after the storm passed, had there been security problems at the port, what kind of damage was there. He found ways not to answer without being impolite ... but his demeanor put us all off and we knew we weren't getting more out of him than his terse responses.

Let's see now, what did he tell us? He had not seen much from the bunker-like building they stayed in. There had been no real security problems following the storm; none they had not anticipated and handled. There was damage, of course there was. Storage trailers had been tossed about, some warehouses damaged, but that was to be expected.

So the others gave up the questions and drifted away. As Max finished his meal, I poured us each a glass of wine. I asked him questions of my own ... stupidly thinking that now that we were alone, he would tell me things. If he opened up, I could as well. Maybe?

Tell me, I said to him. He blinked at me. Tell me if you were in danger, I prodded. Was it bad? Very bad? How bad?

His eyes skidded away from mine. Not bad, nothing too rough. Every one of his staff survived. He was proud of them; they had performed well.

Who is Robert, the guy who brought you here, I asked him, searching for some way in. He shrugged his shoulders ... just someone who'd come in from his headquarters; part of the team they'd sent in to relieve him and his staff so they could take much-needed time off to go check on their families. He'd had to drive Max because Max's car had been partially buried by a wall in the parking garage that collapsed.

Oh, I said. His eyes darted up to mine. I shrugged. 

"Well, we're without a car then," I said. "I don't have mine anymore either. But at least we have Pete's truck to use for a while."

"What happened to your car?" he asked me, going on point at this little detail.

"It's no big deal," I said, jumping up to clear the table. "Look, I'm sure you're wondering about the house in Folsom ... there was some damage but really it's all repairable and besides, it looks worse than it is."

"It was every bit as bad as it appeared," he said softly.

"How would you know?" He shrugged and sipped his wine. I stared at him. "You went there? Before you came here? I don't understand ..."

"The message I got from you did not mention you'd left there. Naturally, it's where I went to find you."

"Oh, Max." What was that strange, hard knot deep inside me that blocked my throat and made my eyes burn? "I am sorry that you had to drive up there and see that with no warning."

He shook his head, rose to come to me. I took a step back and then turned to the sink, to dishes, to something to occupy myself. He cleared his throat before asking, "How is your mother? Ralph told me you were concerned about her health."

"She's fine. My aunt and uncle came over from Lafayette two days ago and took her there to live with them until we can get back into the city," I told him. "I really don't want her going home until I've had a chance to check it out first. I want to be sure she's spared any shock if there's a lot of damage."

"When the time comes, we will go together, Ann. You are not going into that city alone under the current situation."

"I hadn't planned to. But ..." I glanced at him over my shoulder. He looked almost hard. "I assumed you'd have to be back at work. Ralph and his brother Pete said they'd come in with me if you weren't around."

His eyes flashed at me. But it was just an instant. In its place, his eyes smiled sadly at me. "I will make the time."

"How long will you be here?" I muttered. "When do you have to go back?"

"Soon."

"Okay."

After dinner, I showed him the shower. He asked if I wanted to come in with him. I smiled and shook my head, like he'd made a joke. He was looking at me over his shoulder. I left before he undressed.

It took me a long time to clean the dishes and the rest of the kitchen. By the time I was finished and had washed up for bed, he was asleep. I stood at the foot of the bed and watched him sleep. He looked different to me. I wondered what all he'd seen after the storm. I hoped he was okay. I just didn't know how to help him. I hated knowing that something was holding me back and I didn't understand what it was.

I lay next to his body. I wore a big t-shirt. I didn't move. I didn't touch him. I didn't know why but I think I do now. Maybe we all show shock in different ways. Maybe it lingers with us differently.

Sometime very late in that night, I woke up from a nightmare. I had seen his hand bleeding and in my dream, I could not stop it and it just kept bleeding until he turned white before me. I spent maybe twenty minutes huddled on the floor of the bathroom until I stopped my heart from beating so fast. In the bedroom, I just was too scared to sleep again so I sat in an armchair and waited for daylight.

Who knows what woke him? Maybe I wasn't as quiet as I thought. Probably, some part of him just knew I was missing. But I know that I never heard him get out of bed. He was simply before me, sinking down until he was kneeling at my feet. He draped a blanket over my shoulders and made a hushing noise at me when I jumped under his hands.

"You're shivering, cara," he says softly.

"I didn't mean to wake you," I whisper to him. He just touches my face. So tender, tentative. I feel my body tense. 

"Why do you shy from me, Anna?" he asks me. Even though he speaks low, he speaks with firmness.

I don't know why. I want him to go back to bed, to leave me, to let me be alone. I've been alone all this time. I've been without him. But he doesn't move. I think he knows that if he leaves me just now, that something material will shift between us, something made so fragile by what's happened.

"I don't want to be this woman," I say, my eyes darting to his, hoping he understands but knowing he won't. He can't. He's strong; how can he understand what it's like to feel so very weak? I clear my throat, try again. "I've tried so hard, Max. I have."

"I'm sure you have done well," he says. I can't look at him. I reach out instead and touch over his heart, hidden under his bare chest, but I can feel it beating ... steady, sure. Him. "Tell me."

I sigh. My eyes dart to his again; this time, they are called back to linger. The lines in his face are so pronounced. I smooth over them with my fingertips. "I want to be like you, Max. I want to be strong. I don't want to keep feeling like at any second, I'm about to cave in. I don't want to keep faking it and knowing that all it would take is one second of letting go and I'd fall apart."

"I'm here now, cara. I promise I will ..."

"No." I say it so harsh. "I am a strong person. I am. I can do this. And you have to go back to New Orleans tomorrow, to your job. And I don't want you to think I'm falling apart. That I can't do this."

He hesitates. Considers his options. Examines me. "Perhaps I could stay for a few days. A relief team is in place."

"I need you more than a few days, Maximus! Don't you get it? I need you to put me before your damned job." My voice betrays anger I've kept bottled up ... anger I don't suppose I've known was going to come out. My sharpness, though, it's over as quick as it's flared ... and my voice quivers. "I've been up there in Folsom making decisions I'm not equipped to make. And I'm scared, Max. I don't know what's going to become of us. Of all of us. Everything hurts right now and I have no one to hold me."

It has come rushing out of me, all of it and I'm immediately regretting that I said it, any of it. I see this look of hurt on his face, like I've just made him feel that he failed somehow. I lean across the space between us, reach for him, but he shakes me off.

"I didn't mean that, Max," I whisper, urgent and hushed as he rises and steps carefully across the room. "I'm so glad to have you with me ... I should have kept my mouth shut ..."

But he says nothing for so long. Just stands there, turned away from me. And then with a suddenness I don't expect, he wheels around to face me, his face intent and his eyes glaring at me ... his voice is angry and accusatory as he says tightly, "You want to know how I feel? Do you want to know how I felt?"

"Yes. Please, Max. Please tell me," I whisper to him, shaking hard now at this unexpected and raw display of anger.

He opens his mouth then shuts it. Looks at me ... his eyes shift ... as if he's pleading with me to not make him do this ... to understand him without him having to say anything. He swallows once, twice. Shakes his head. Please, I mouth out to him even as I open my arms to bid him to come to my embrace.

Sinking before me, his hands find mine. Tears well in his eyes as he kisses at my fingertips. He buries his face in my lap, releasing my hands to slowly slide his around me. I can feel him. I always said he was weakest where I was concerned. I run my hands over his head, shoulders, arms and then just stroke his hair as he cries and shakes from emotion unleashed from a part of him that always makes me feel most protective of him ... the strongest, bravest man I've ever known.

As his crying subsides, he nestles his face into my lap and his hands grip in on me. His voice is choked and he half cries as he tells me of how there was a moment inside the storm when he had what he thought was another premonition. A premonition, I ask him when he doesn't go on.

"My past," he forces out.

"Your family," I murmur and kiss the back of his neck, the only place my lips can reach.

He just starts talking ... about the past ... about riding beyond all endurance, hoping to get to his family in time to save them. About the time when his body failed him, when fatigue and the physical toil of his wound made him falter, slowed him when he needed to still be forcing the horse to race across the miles that still separated him from them. That in that moment, he had a premonition, a vision of blood ... only to see it realized when he did complete his final journey home. To find he'd failed his family, he murmurs.

"You did your best, Maximus. You did better than any other man would have been able to do. I know it."

"It was my fault. My pride. My allegiance to what I considered my duty," he mutters in a hollow voice.

"No. Oh, my love. You were always doing what you thought was right. How could you have known?"

He raises his face until he is looking in my eyes. His hands are on my face. I wipe at his tears. He is letting mine fall over his fingers.

"When I heard ... when I realized what had happened where you were ... I thought I was about to lose another family," he says to me, licking his lips and closing his eyes for a moment before letting me hug him in to me. His mouth is against my ear; his voice is hoarse as he chokes out, "I don't know how else to behave but to attend to my duty when I am called upon. But at what cost to my family, Anna?"

"I don't want you any way but how you are, Maximus," I say, finally, when I can speak. "I love you. Just you. Just as you are. You just have to remember that ... I'm sorry I made you feel badly ... I was just tired ... There isn't an easy answer but I think, I swear to God, Max, that I want you to be the kind of man who does the right thing, even if that means I'm left wishing you were with me and you can't be."

His arms tighten on me. His heart beats fast against my chest. I feel him.

"We all survived, my love. Isn't that really what matters?"

Long, long minutes go by ... his breathing steadies. I kiss his temple, lingering there as we hold each other, as I feel he is holding me more securely, as I become more aware of his power and strength. It seems to me that his words have seeped deep inside me ... and he has made me feel the eternal nature of what he feels for me. We match each other in our allegiances, in our needs, in our devotion. Even in these times of losing so much, we have the foundation of our future right here. I wish to God I could forget every bad thing that is happening outside our embrace ... if it were only us, we'd do fine. But there is still no way to get back what we had. We're going to have rebuild and we're going to need a new future. This is the first time I feel confident I can do this and it's because we're together again. It's because he is a man I believe in. And only now do I feel he's with me ... really with me ... that he's no longer locked behind his stoicism. That he's out in the open, raw and vulnerable ... and my partner in this life and the next.

But I'm not ready ... not yet. I am having too much trouble shaking off the protective numbness of the past week or so. Having his hands on me, his presence around me, his life force ... I flash on seeing him for the first time a few hours ago. I whisper against his ear, "I'll never forget that moment of knowing you were alive. It was as if I was given permission to breathe again."

"You looked so small to me," he whispers back. I feel his hands edge the hem of the t-shirt. I shift until he can pull it up over my hips, until his hands can come under it, until he is able to touch my skin. "Was it so hard for you? Tell me, Anna. Let me in."

He feels big. Strong. I could revel in this. "I kept thinking how you'd come all this way, just for me ... and I ... what if I'd lost you, Max? It would have been my fault because if not for me ..."

He makes this deep 'mmmm' noise. His hands scoot me closer to where he kneels between my knees. "You must never think that, cara. I will never regret coming here, to you ... and it was my choice, after all. You have given me a love that will be mine forever. And you haven't lost me, Anna. I'm here. Right here."

It makes me whimper. I don't really want to say it ... but then I am. "Max, I was scared. A lot. Still am. Maybe more scared now than ever. I want ... to feel ..."

"You're safe now. Can you feel it?"

Suddenly, I can do nothing but cling to him, so hard ... if I were looking, I know my fingers would be digging deep into his back, that my knuckles would be white with my need to hold onto the one person I want to save me. And yet ... it isn't fair of me, is it?

"I need you, Maximus ... I need you so much ... I need you to be with me ... just for a little while ... a day or two ... please?"

His mouth presses in over mine. My tongue touches the tip of his. He pauses to say, "Yes. Anything."

"Really?"

"I want you to need me in this moment." His voice brooks no argument ... it is the quality of virility that moves me so. "I need to be your man, now. Tonight. I need to know my place in your life is the place it should be ... as only a man such as me can live. Cara ... I won't fail you."

"Oh, Max. You never fail me." And this is all I can get out. 

I have forgotten.

Forgotten what it's like to be really held.

Held by him. Held as if his slightest touch commands. As if he knows only he has ever really touched me in a way that makes me understand my own power.

His mouth at my neck makes me sigh and writhe in his arms. My hand touches his neck.

I have forgotten how he can sweat there, along the side, in a sheen, when he is concentrating. When he is hard against me and lifting me in his arms and walking to the bed. When he makes me feel that when he is with me, nothing will ever threaten me. When his mouth makes me moan.

He lays me down and comes over me as if I will melt away from him and he must not let me escape. When I look in his eyes, they are dark and his lashes flutter every so often. There is a place behind his earlobe that makes him growl when I lick and suckle.

There is an expression on his face ... those furrows between his brows ... his mouth terse in the second before his lips open and he places them over one of my nipples. And then the furrows disappear as I hold him in my hand.

He is so gentle. I am not completely. He is making me feel alive again ... I can feel my hands, my legs, my breasts, my spine ... my core, where it heaves and roils, all sloppy and unrefined.

I want to get lost. I want protection. I want to be absorbed. I want ... I want the only part of my life I have left ... I want him to be him. I want him to take me.

He knows. He has always been an instinctive lover ... dominant, earthy, following my signals, matching them with his wants, pushing me when he feels the desire, responsive to me, fearless.

There is a way he has of moving those fingers down my belly. It's as if he knows he is driving me insane. And then he touches my curls. I roll until I can put a leg over his hip, trying to get in better position.

Have I remembered how he likes me to touch him? How I like to touch him ... to feel what I can make him feel. What's he taste like? Is it the same?

He goes slow. I am slower.

I had once faced never being here again. I open to him.

Come inside.

Deeper.

Slow.

Yes.

His neck tastes as I remember. His tongue feels as I remember. His body anchors me. He has been the one I have grown accustomed to having watch over me.

I watch his eyes as he moves above me. Pumping slow. Gritting his teeth when I give that little gasp each time he gives that ending slide. My fingers wind into his hair. His neck is corded. His arms bulge, bracing himself on his elbows. I bite one. I cannot help it. He shoves hard and grins down at me when I moan into a smile in response.

His eyes keep me locked in even as my back bows and my head tilts back ... my fingers tighten on his scalp as I reach up for his lips. I want to kiss him to a coming. I want to feel him give it up to me ... I want him to fight to defeat me ... to take victor's spoils. I want him to be strong for me.

I'd forgotten that taste in my mouth when I come for him. My lips slide from his; I swallow, my eyes pressed tightly closed ... tears wetting my lashes.

We are so quiet. There are others in the house and I know they heard us earlier raising our voices, angry, frustrated, venting. I don't want to share the sound of our love with them. This is only for us.

There is that final breath ... the one he makes ... it sounds like he is going to say something harsh ... but this time, he grunts that breath and I could swear it was my name ... he comes into me ... hunching as if he can't get in far enough or will not stop. My eyes open part way to watch him as he does this. He is so beautiful to me.

My love.

Cara.

For all my fears that I would cry and never stop crying if I let myself give in to it, I haven't actually shed that many tears in this night. I am drifting in and out of sleep as he holds me. I feel more tears come out just at the memory of saying something in this night that wounded him. I don't know that I'll ever get used to the disjointed emotions and thoughts ... but long minutes later, after I've felt my tears dry up against his warm skin, I am holding him as he holds me.

And it is all.

It won't be all right, not this easily, but it is all. And that is a concept impossible to explain. 

All the destruction, all the hardship, all the questions, all the fear, all the uncertainty, all the unfairness, all the disbelief, all the wrong, all the good and bad, all the horror, the stink, the mud, the water, the broken lives, the snapped trees, the bruised city, the work ahead of us ... I let it go long enough. Even if it's only in the space of time when I fall asleep against his chest, exhausted beyond care. I don't know how I could have gone on without him coming here to find me and to fight with me and to be with me. To celebrate life in the midst of this all.

There has been so much death ... too much. We need life. New life.

In the morning, we lie entwined, our fingers tracing each other. He asks me about the scratches and bruises I've picked up in all the work I did with Ralph and Pete. I ask him about nicks along his arm and he tells me about breaking into a warehouse to shut off a gas leak.

"I need to ask you something, Maximus," I say into a soft space of easy silence between us. "Was there anything about our relationship that you wished had been different while all this was going on? Anything you thought of as you thought of me and our life?"

He rolls to his side, props his head onto his hand. Looks down at me, curious and frowning. "I am unsure what you are asking but I have the feeling you have something specific to discuss, cara. Go on."

"It's nothing bad, don't worry," I say to him, studying his face. Is this right of me? I think it must be. And if it's not ... I blink and remember where I was heading. "Before all this ... I'd been doing a bit of studying about your culture. I always feel that I don't even know the questions to ask ... But I need to ask something important to me, to understand better  ... Anyway, do you have ius coniubium?"

He blinks as his frown deepens. This must have been about the last thing he was expecting ... to find that I've been trying to figure out what getting married entails to him. "Yes...my marriage was under full rights...do you understand the difference? All it really means is we married much as you do today. There were marriages of lesser status for other reasons."

"And from what I've read, I presume Selene is your univira? And, in your beliefs, she's the one with whom you share sempiternum?"

"She was my sole wife and it was a bond of families and property - and expected to be for life," he says, his voice soft and deep. He has grasped my confusion, my concern ... and it touches him to understand how I feel. "For life, Anna. But Selene died. I am not sure you understand the notion of univira. She was the univira. She wasn't my univira. It means she was the kind of woman who had knowledge of only one man in her life. If I died then she would be unlikely to re-marry. She would expect to meet me sempiturnum. In the next life. It rarely applied to men though. A widowed man would always remarry. It was the way we were."

"I see," I say softly and try to word my question well. "So ... you and I plan to marry ... but it wouldn't be me who'd be the wife you'd be spending eternity with? In the next life?"

He struggles for the words he will give me. It is the one thing that still concerns me about us, me and Max. I don't know, not always, that something he is doing or thinking is rooted in his culture and therefore, so often, I don't just 'know' what is going on with him ... not like his wife Selene would have known.

"I ask because ... because I want to marry you. And we have so often spoken of forever. And in all of this ... I realize how much that concept has meant to me since the first time you said it to me. And I know I'm not of your spiritual beliefs but somehow it would be something I'd treasure ... that in your mind and heart, you and I will be together in the after life. But ... it can't really happen if it's Selene you'll meet there, right?

"I will meet her in the next life. I believe this. But it does not mean I cannot be with you for eternity too. Who knows the realm of the afterlife? It has many realities and many possibilities. I am afraid I do not know the anthropomorphic validation for this....I just believe it to be true....it is difficult to explain to modern people..."

"Is it considered rude of me to ask you that? It's not meant that way ... There is a reason behind it ...I haven't blundered, have I?"

"It is not a blunder...it is your right to understand. I will tell you anything you need to know...you only have to ask..."

Our eyes meet. It is a moment I'll tuck away. I wish I had some paper umbrella or something else to honor it. I believe he knows just what I am leading up to. But it is still up to me to do it.

"Do your remember a few weeks ago, you said you wanted me to be the one to set the date for when we'd marry?" I ask him, studying his eyes intently, looking for any sign. His face is impassive. His eyes, though, are anything but.

"I remember. And have you made a decision?"

"Yes. Before you return to your duty, I want to get married. Today, preferably." 

His chin tilts down. His finger toys with the ring he placed on my finger months ago. I watch the emotions flit in his eyes. I am touched to the depths of my soul.

I pull him down to where I can whisper in his ear. "There's been so much death, so much destroyed. Maximus, I want to rebuild. I want life. New life. But I don't want to create new life except as your wife. Besides, I want a formal bond that the rest of the world cannot ignore when I'm trying to find out where you are and if you are alive even. It's the one thing I wished I'd done before I came so close to losing you."

His arms come under me. We hold each other. Not talking. I close my eyes and wonder what he's thinking. 

"Will you accept this not-so-great honor, Maximus?" I say, finally, when the waiting begins to worry me.

"Yes," he whispers, his mouth over my ear. "With all my heart, yes."

A few hours later, as we stand waiting on the justice of the peace to finish his paperwork, I glance at Max to find him sporting a smug smile. What, I ask him. Assimilation is complete, he mouths out to me. I glare at him even as he pulls me to him and kisses me.

I never thought I'd be here. I never thought this was the life I would choose. Into this union, I take my gritty faith.

In the space of this one morning, we two refugees, we do find that we still have the ability to fight for the right to be free again. But we're only going to survive this, I believe, because we've been able to give each other back the faith in ourselves we've each had chipped away at as we got caught up in the sense of the overwhelming odds facing everyone we know down here.

We must go home. It is the only way we stop living as if we are forever refugees.