I see things differently from here. I close my eyes, dip into the past, struggle to hold onto a memory of Maximus relaxing into the peace of our union. But ever since Luke said he'd overheard when Maximus had prayed to his ancestors to explain his desire to stay and live out this lifetime with me, I have wandered into the sad places of my memories. I see them differently now.

There is a different cast, a different meaning.

Now when I remember that day in the Coliseum with Maximus, I know the exact moment he must have first heard his wife calling to him across the once sandy floor of the arena. It was when we'd reached the end of the walkway that ran over the bowels of this place of death and spectacle. He had turned so suddenly, looked back. What I had taken as him finally feeling the pull of bitter memories and a last look back into his past, that was him looking in the direction of her voice. He saw them; he saw the heavy wooden door in the wall of grey-white stones. He heard them calling him, letting him know they were there, waiting for him, that all he had to do was step through to be with them.

What I thought was irritation at my intrusion on his thoughts must have been him caught with an impossible opportunity. What I thought was him comforting me must have been him stepping back into the present time, fully in it with me. And perhaps, my arms around him and my need of him were not an intrusion ... perhaps he needed them, perhaps they provided his own sense of comfort to know I would have been lost without him. Perhaps we were each other's anchor to a world that should not shift and fall like stone turned to sand.

My interpretation of what he said and what he didn't say when we had those conversations in Rome and in Ostia about him putting our future child first and about my belief that it was his first wife and child who were the ones who'd remain his first priority ... how differently I view his responses now. The restraint in them. If it had been me, I could never have resisted saying, "You fool! Don't you know I had the chance to go be with them but I would never abandon you. What more do you need from me before you understand what you are in my life?"

He never said that to me. He never would. He holds things in, important things he should say. But he proves those very things to me instead. I think maybe he has the right way of it. You can say things all you want ... but proving it by your actions, your everyday actions, that is where the truth lies. The larger truth.

But now I know all this. Now I see everything so differently.

Even if it's too late, even if he has no other recourse but to go through this rift in time with Lucius, I still know where I stood with him was not where I would ever have imagined.

He has loved me with a fierceness that transcends everything. We have unique ties. They can never be unbound, no matter what may come. Even when the memories may no longer exist, they will still have once lived and breathed.

Hando and Ralph eat the stew. I nibble on bread but not the pieces that William has buttered. I stand with my back to the sink, leaning a hip into the counter, and I stare at William.

William is tied up, his arms immobilized, his feet lashed tight to sturdy wood legs of one of our kitchen chairs. His eyes are unfocused; he is within himself. We are all deathly silent. The next phone call is due in about 40 minutes.

He has not asked about Tony. Perhaps he thinks Tony is alive somewhere, coming to rescue him. Perhaps William thinks he has a chance to survive. Perhaps he knows better. After all, I don't think they were going to let either me or Ralph live. I think Max knew that. Even if time changed and none of this would happen in a new future, I don't think Max could bear knowing we had been killed in this wavering reality.

"You killed my dog," I say, finally. I have learned from Max. I am clinging to the one injustice that will force me to plot revenge so foul I would never imagine I could be this way.

William blinks; his eyes focus. He frowns then glances at Ralph.

"No, he didn't," Ralph says to me, between swallows of stew that had been in a forgotten can not an hour earlier. He drinks a swig of Coke, wipes his mouth with his wrist. His eyes are on mine. I wait patiently. "He was supposed to kill Buck. Shoot him. But he didn't. He told me I'd have to figure out how to keep the dog quiet because if he barked, the others would know. So I tied his snout with the leash and put him up in my apartment. In the bathroom."

I know I blink. I know I swallow. I know I do not faint this time.

"He begged me not to kill the dog," William says softly. Meaning that Ralph had begged for the life of my dog. Meaning Ralph knew what the death would do to me.

This is when I can feel my body again. When I know my brain is still in control of my legs, arms. I walk out the door, down the walkway, into the stable, through the inner door that leads up an enclosed stairwell that ends at Ralph's apartment door. Inside, where I've only been once or twice when Pete was living there with Ralph, I walk right to the bathroom. This close, I can hear the faint whimpering and the scritch of nails on the door.

I am grateful they let me do this alone. This is when I speak to Max, my face in my dog's fur, my arms around his squirming body as I tremble and rock side to side. Please come home to us, I tell Max, my eyes shut and my heart breaking. You need to be here, with us, for us. It can't have been all for nothing.

Buck scarfs up the bowl of stew and the larger bowl of water I place for him inside the kitchen. Hando complains about Buck's table manners. I flip him the bird.

But after the next phone call, after William does just what he was supposed to with a gun to his temple, I follow Hando out onto the deck where he is smoking a cigarette. I slip my arms around his neck and whisper in his ear of my gratitude for what he is doing for us. He has one arm around me, squeezes. Emotions like this are hard for him to accept and he has no real gut feeling for how to respond.

"What are Max's plans?" I ask him, giving him a way to show me who he is without making him do it with squishy, emotional conversation.

"Don't know them all. Just know he has them," Hando says as we break apart but stand so near each other. I've never stood this near him before voluntarily. He is far removed from the punk who took delighted advantage of my silly weakness for his testosterone-overloaded body and his dangerous arrogance.

"Tell me about the conversation. About what he said to you. I just need to understand where his mind was, what he knew he was facing. When he came here, we couldn't tell each other the truth because they were listening."

He shrugs and looks off. Maybe he's remembering. Maybe he feels bad to know things about Max that I don't. Maybe this never occurs to him. "He said this other Roman general had you. That he wanted something in exchange for your life but Max didn't know what. I was supposed to sneak in, hide where I could see the house and wait on a signal."

"What was the signal?"

"Hell being unleashed."

I look at Hando. I think about what must have been going through Max's mind then. He must have assumed he'd take them all on. That he'd want Hando rushing in at the sound of mayhem to help him.

"I told him that Luke wanted to go home. I wonder if he understood that," I say.

"He said if he left with some short older guy in a car, then I was to pick my time and then kill the ones left, one by one. To free you. To not take any chances with your life."

"He knew then. He guessed."

"He told me to tell you something. He said to tell you that he wasn't leaving you."

"He may have no other choice."

"You think he'll let anyone take that life before it really starts?"

I glance down, along my body, to my feet. He has shared more with Hando than I could have realized. And I can feel that between them is now the feeling of familial love, a bond between men, something important that I can no longer fight.

"Why did he choose you, Hando? If he was going to have anyone come here to do a rescue, you'd think it'd have been his men, the ones he works with. Or Terry or Zack, someone with experience."

"Because he knows me. Because he trained me. If it'd been one of his men at work, the jig about who he was woulda been up, wouldn't it? And the others? Maybe he didn't want them questioning his orders or regretting following them later."

"Taking lives. Yeah. It's not easy for anyone. Even you. Even him."

"They have to be eliminated. They know who he is, what he is. They'll always be a threat otherwise. To all of us. No problem from where I sit."

I hear it in his voice ... a mixture of pride and bravado. And he seems to me to have grown older, more mature in just a matter of the time it took him to come here, with the sword Max gave him and taught him to use.

This act of Max, of putting this much faith and confidence in Hando has made Hando own up to the stake he now has in this place. He has a family; he has allegiances, especially to the man who has been a mentor and a brother. I picture Hando picking up the sword after talking with Max in that phone call. I can see him testing its heft and I can feel him growing older, old enough to be cold and methodical as the one who stalks killers. I see him, sword in hand, waiting around that corner for the strike he will make that will result in Tony's death. One killer down, one to go.

More as needed, but we don't know about them yet. We are about to find out, we hope.

His cigarette done, we go into the house. Ralph and Hando lift William, lashed to the kitchen chair. They carry him down to the stable. To where Ralph has tools he uses to do minor work on the horse's hooves, among other things. These tools are sharp. Some heat up. When Hando holds different ones, considering his options, I wonder if William flashes on the scenes in the movie Reservoir Dogs when the young cop is being tortured until he gets beyond begging for his life.

I want to leave. I don't want to bear witness. I hold Buck's leash and my breath. I am carrying William's cell phone, the one Luke will call in about 90 minutes.

"Annie, go upstairs," Hando says without looking at me.

"The horses," I say.

"What about them?"

"Let them out in the run. They shouldn't have to hear him when you do this."

"Neva's out there," Ralph says. 

So neither choice is good. Inside, they will hear a man's fears. Outside, they will see for themselves that their stable mate has been murdered. Either memory will last for as long as we have. I don't appreciate that we have no good choices for the horses.

"You bastard," I hiss at William as I leave to go up to Ralph's apartment. I tug a reluctant Buck with me. I wonder if he wants to stay and watch the torture. The horses have no choice. They will bear witness.

"Tell me what you want to know," I hear William say to Hando and Ralph. He sounds brave but I saw his eyes just before I left. I think he knows it won't be that easy.

It's much later that day. It's late at night, in fact. Two more phone calls have come and gone. We cannot communicate with Maximus because it is Luke who calls and we figure Max does not have his phone. Luke probably took it from him. It would be the smart thing to do.

There are others out there, men who work for Luke. But they are not around us. They are in Rome. They wait there for Maximus. They are there to kill him if he does anything to double cross Luke. They will go with Luke, into the past. Luke has convinced them they will be rewarded handsomely; that some day, he will be emperor and the world will be theirs. At first, William had told Hando that he did not know how many there are; he had met three; believed there were more than that. But Tony and Luke never told him details about this because William was seeking his reward to be in a bank here; after all, someone had to stay behind. If not, they would have had no one to keep me captive until Max took them back to the past. But with persuasion, we now know there are five men who will meet Luke in Rome. And that these are all of Luke's remaining men.

We want to warn Maximus. But we have no way to do it. Perhaps, when the final call comes, and he will have the chance for one last word with me before he takes Luke over to the past, perhaps then I can tell Maximus ... but what good would it do? By then, these others will be with him. He will know already.

"But he needs to know they're the only remaining threat," Ralph says.

"What difference does it make?" Hando asks. "Even if he knew they were all he'd have to fight, so what?"

"If there are only a few, he could take them easily. If there are more, at least he can put up a fight," I say.

"Any he doesn't get will just come after you. He won't risk it," Hando says, sure of himself. He walks out, going on the deck. I wait a moment, staring into the darkness, before seeing the flare of a lighter and the glow of the cigarette as he draws smoke into his lungs.

"I still believe he'll come back," I say to Ralph.

"I'm just glad he told me who he was a few months ago. Otherwise, I'd have been swearing this was some bad mojo messing with my mind."

"I didn't know he told you. But I'm glad he did and I'm even gladder you stayed with us even knowing that."

Our eyes meet. He shrugs. It's nothing to him. It means so much to me.

"Thank you for saving Buck's life," I say.

"I like him."

"I'm going to lie down. Wake me for the next call."

Then here I am. Lying on the floor of the artist's studio. I think about lying here, with Buck, the day before, after Max left and before Luke came here. This place is some strange vortex of emotional release for me.

I close my eyes in darkness. I force myself to dream the memory of the first night of our honeymoon. I test myself to remember every detail. If I skip ahead, I say, 'no, you forgot something' and I go back to recapture some obscure fact or feeling. I am greedy.

It is here I break. For all of the memory that I would shove in, hiding it in the crevices of my heart, I know it is totally illogical to think it's possible that I can really keep it alive if it never happens when I have to relive this life. If Maximus goes into the past, all of this is gone. He will never come here; we'll never meet in my timeline. He'll live with the memories of our time; I'll never even have that time much less memories of it.

I break hard. It's brittle; a million pieces of me and shatters of millions of pieces of memories of Maximus.

It's the feeling of the Coliseum in my dreams ... of solid cement slabs turning to sand around me and falling, taking me with it.

I picture Maximus. Is he scared? Is he worrying about me? Does he wish the gods would leave him the fuck alone? Is he resolved to fate? Really, it's not so bad, his fate, this time ... this is what I ponder for a while. Really, even if he has to go with Luke, how bad is that for him? He would live out his natural life, with his real family. He grows fat and old surrounded by love and the simple pleasures of a life in which he belongs and understands. No more trying to fit in here. No more dealing with standards and people he should not have to fathom.

No more dealing with the challenge of me.

Even if the worst happens, if he will remember me, perhaps I will end up in Elysium after my death, brought there by his loyalty ... and I will spend forever getting to know someone I would have been searching for my whole life without even knowing it.

There are other considerations, of course. Another life at stake. But it's only begun; maybe saying goodbye to it is easier now than later.

I hear his voice in the night's cacophony. "Trust in me," it says. I know it's not there, his voice, that I am imagining it, remembering it. But it is so solid that I think of it as a small, round ball that I can hold onto and never dent.

If this is the end of these memories, they have been good ones. I wish with everything I have that I could keep them. 

I wrap my arms around Buck. "I want this life, Buck," I whisper to him.

There have been nine phone calls so far. I figure the next one could be the final one.

Ralph is sleeping, fitfully, on the floor before the hearth. I watch his chest rise and fall. Beyond him is Max's altar. My eyes stray there even though I have forbidden them to do this. But when they do, they insist on focusing on the altar. Something seems wrong to me. I rise and glide over. Perhaps I should light the candles.

My figurine is not there any longer.

He took it with him.

Oh, Maximus. I love you so. Come home to me. But if you don't, keep that figurine with you always so that I can find you in eternity.

I wipe tears away as I go back to the couch and settle in.

Hando is in the kitchen. I can hear him drinking a beer. He gugs it down, thirsty but also liking the simple pleasure of a small buzz that goes with this ritual.

"Is it time yet?" Ralph's gruff voice filters through to me. He groans, stretches, yawns.

"Who was she?" I ask him as William looks between us. He has been silent in between the last two phone calls. He feels safer with Ralph and me. Hando has convinced him of his ruthlessness. William thinks I will forgive him since Buck lives. He thinks he and Ralph bonded when he defied Luke's order to kill either the dog or Ralph to take away hope from me so Max would hear it in my voice.

"Who was who?" Ralph says. He does not want me to ask this. But we have gone to this other place where I can ask something like this.

"The artist. The woman who painted. Was she your lover?"

"She was the owner's granddaughter."

"You loved her." It is not a question. "Is she alive?"

"No."

I look at him. He is rising to his feet. He is Louisiana country, through and through. A good old boy from the bayou. Soft at the core and easy to believe he's simpler than he is.

"Is there anything you would do differently, Ralph? If this all starts over for us, I mean, it's like a second chance."

"I would have married the girl I cheated on in college," he says.

His candor is shocking to me. "What about the artist?"

"What makes you think that's not who I'm talking about?"

Somehow I know, though, that they are two different women. But he loved them both, I think. "Did you ever cheat on a woman again?"

He shakes his head. Life is hard. Most times, you learn your lessons too late to do you any good.

"What about you, Ann? Would you change anything?"

I would say no, but that seems like cheating. So I say the first thing that comes to mind. Even when I say it, I know it's not the only thing I'd change. But I also know that if I changed too much, I wouldn't recognize my life.

"I would have forgiven my father before he died," I say.

This is not what he expected me to say. But I think his revelation deserves mine.

"Did you leave anything undone with Max?" he asks me.

"Yes." I feel a tear come out. It lingers just below my eye and then slowly rounds my cheek. I don't touch it. I let it fall.

We hear William's cell phone ring. The phone is in the kitchen. We hear Hando's chair scrape back and then he's in the room with us, flipping on the overhead light as he comes in with the phone.

As Ralph quickly undoes one of William's hands so he can hold the phone to his ear, Hando stands across from him, his gun aimed at William's face. Ralph releases William's other hand, in case he must take notes this time. As he does, William talks into his cell phone. He sounds tired. He should be exhausted beyond all hope.

"Everything's a-okay. No problems ... sure, she's being fine." He listens for a moment. His eyes catch mine. "Yeah? Well, that's good then."

Ralph and I trade looks.

"I'll put her on, then you'll come back with the account information?"

After he nods a few times, he suddenly thrusts the phone toward me.

I am unprepared and yet we've been waiting for this all day. Ralph grabs the phone and puts it in my hand. I look at it and don't understand what it is. And then I remember ... it's a phone. Maximus is on the other end, I say to myself.

Only it's Luke at first. He says it'll all be over soon. That I won't remember any of this because it won't happen.

And then there is a pause, silence, rustling I can hear as if someone has partially muted the phone.

Max's voice comes through soft, sure. "Anna?"

"Maximus." What can I say? What does he need to know? What is going to help? "I love you, Max. Can I tell you about ...?"

"Do you remember the night we first saw the Coliseum?"

I don't know what is going on. What is he trying to tell me? These could be the last memories he wants me to hold onto. "I do. I was scared in some ways but in others, I was relieved."

"Do you remember your dream after?"

"Yes, I do."

"It was not a premonition. Do you understand? I wish for you to never forget that. Many things may happen, but that will not. My love is unchanging."

It is always him. First, last. I hope this is not the last.

It is a good final message. It means someone is listening to our call but Max has a plan to fight back. He just wants me to know that, in case it doesn't work.

I need to give him our message. Hando and Ralph rehearsed this with me. I am ready. I say, "Do you remember what Hando said that one time? The time he was here practicing with you?"

"No, I do not remember any profound statements. Is this important right now? Nothing else you wish to say to me before I have to leave you?"

This is how I know he knows. I smile. He knows now that Hando is with me. That I am safe. That what I now say has meaning, importance. "Yes, it's important. It's what I want you to remember ... he said that wouldn't it be great if you could have all your problems lined up in front of you. Just one time, to know that everything you face that can hurt you is right there, where you can see them. Then, you'll know how to tackle them, one by one, and that when you're done, you can have some peace for a change."

"And what am I to make of that as your final message, Anna?"

"That as you go into your old life, you know what you face and you know how to attain what you want. This is my greatest wish for you, Maximus. Because I love you beyond life and beyond reason. And I always will."

"Cara, my love for you will never die. Trust in me."

"Always. No matter what."

Luke comes back on the line. He tells me to be happy for Maximus because he is going back where he belongs and his life will be so much better. I am crying softly; he hears the unmistakable sounds. He believes I have resigned to losing Max and this life.

As he gives William last instructions including the bank account information, we all three hold our breaths, waiting for some last minute glitch. Ralph is leaning in, his ear sharing the phone with William's, listening to what Luke says.

When it is over, when the phone is shut, Ralph says, "He didn't seem to suspect anything. He told William to follow the plan with Tony."

"The plan to kill you both before leaving here," Hando says. His voice is a soft burr of threat and anger.

"It doesn't matter now," I say. "What's important is that Max understood our message. He knows now that the men with him are the only threats. If he can get rid of them, then ..."

I can't say it ... I realize what this means, what the options are for Max. He would have to kill them all, all six of them with him. How will he do that? And if he does, how will he explain it to the authorities? It still seems the only logical plan for Max is to go with them, into the past. Maybe he can sneak back? But if he lets them into the past, our present will still be altered so that is not a good answer.

"He's got a plan," Hando says. "Believe it. And stop worrying your pea brain, woman."

"So now we wait. Maybe for this to just end for us," I say. Then, almost as an afterthought, I add, "Or for him to come here, of course."

We are waiting.

Ralph and Hando are discussing what to do with William. William is not a Stoic. 

My vote was that we kill him because he is a threat to us all. Someone who can be bought off always has a price that someone else will pay. 

But when it comes down to the practical, with really squeezing the trigger or just allowing someone else to squeeze it while you stand by, knowing your part in a man's premeditated death, that is not easy to do. This is what I found out when Hando put the gun in my hand as William moaned ... Hando said, go on and do it then, you're so easy about it. I could not.

It is the truth, though, that he is a threat to our lives if they do continue. I don't know how we eliminate the threat without eliminating him.

I have wandered off with Buck at my heels. We stand together, observing Neva's form in the near distance. We can see her but we are not close enough to smell her or to see flies. Nor can I see if wild animals have begun mutilating her remains.

When I was young, I remember seeing a movie about survivors of a nuclear war. They wandered around knowing the radiation cloud was coming and then they would die from a senseless war they had not a thing to do with. They spent their time just waiting for their time to end. They don't do anything prosaic or anything truly wild. They don't fight or rail against the unbeatable foe. They just wait, numb, and in so many ways, wishing the end would get there faster to get it over with.

This is what I feel like - someone who knows the end is nigh but that there is nothing that can be done but wait for it to catch up to you. I don't think the movie was very truthful, though. I am not afraid. But I am sad. And I am angry.

But most of all, I am empty.

It has been three hours now. Maximus has not called us.

We don't know what to make of this. If they went back to the past, this timeline would not exist anymore. If he did somehow keep them from going back in time, he would have called to say it was over and that he was coming home.

So we just wait and don't know anything.

I reverse dialed to Luke's cell phone, using William's. It rang and rang until it went to voice mail. I left no message but I was tempted to tell him I hoped he was rotting in hell.

Five hours. I am sleeping. I am empty of dreams. As hard as I tried to keep them close, they are not here unless I am awake. The phone rings, the one next to our bed, where I've been sleeping. My first thought is about how I wasn't dreaming and how I feel cheated, like these moments of sleep were wasted time for me now when it just may be this is all already ending.

The phone rings the third time. I pick it up. It's at my ear. "Hello?" I ask, as if this is a normal day.

"I am on my way home," Maximus says.

I am crying. Great big, gulping sobs that come from nowhere. "I thought you were dead," I croak out, between sobs.

"It is over, Anna. Everything ... I promise you, cara, everything is fine now."

"Oh god, Max. When will you be home? Please ... tell me what happened ..."

"I am in London. My flight for Washington is about to begin boarding."

"London?" I say, sitting up. Tears have formed an oblong wet spot on the pillow case. I touch it with my fingers. "And this is the first you're calling me to say you're okay? Why the hell didn't you call us from Rome, Max? We have been going crazy worrying! We couldn't figure out what had happened ... why didn't you call right away?"

His voice shifts, warms, becomes impossibly tender and soft. "This is how you wish to speak to me? Is there no honey you would prefer to pour into my ears?"

"Don't make me cry again. You know I love you impossibly."

"You always knew I would come home ... tell me this, cara."

"I always knew. I trusted in you."

I know I've lied. He knows, too. It doesn't matter. Lovers say the sweetest lies when they have so much to say that the truth isn't enough. I can only hear his breathing.

Again and again, I seem to return to the artist's studio. I don't know what I am searching for in there. Perhaps it is the mystery of it that draws me there. I know now that Ralph will some day tell me about the woman who painted in this room. I know now that he clings to his memories of her and that this room is at the core of something.

Perhaps someday, I will even tell him why I never could forgive my father before he died. It's something I am ashamed of every so often. Most times, though, it seems more like a curiosity in someone else's life. In that way, I am removed from it but I can still look down, without pity or remorse, and consider it. I am still far too unresolved about it to ever tell Max. I still want Max to not know this side of me.

Maximus should be home soon. I drowse in the warm sunlight that comes in this room through the large window that overlooks the drive that leads to our home. The floor is pine with the color of warmed over honey.

Hando has gone to the airport to get Max. I wanted to go, by myself, because I am desperate to touch him, feel him, know he's really here. It seems to me that it's my right as his lover. But Max said he wanted time alone with Hando first. That when he came to me, he would not let me go for a while so he wanted to conduct his business with Hando first.

I suspect when he gets here, he will also want time with Ralph and with the horses. He will also want to see where Ralph and Hando dug the large grave that will hold Neva and her unborn colt. The local sheriff has already sent a deputy over to take a report on the shooting; Ralph said we had to do that before we can do the burying or risk people getting suspicious that we didn't treat it like a crime. The deputy said it would be declared "criminal mischief" and that there wasn't a lot they could do to track down whoever did it since we gave them nothing to go on. We didn't see it happen; we weren't even here at the time as we were visiting my mother in the city, working on repair projects on her house.

It'll be put down to nebulous teenagers up to general "no good" who then got scared and fled after they tasted what it felt like to kill a living creature. This is his answer, this deputy, because he's seen that kind of thing before in this rural area. Not often, mind you, he assured me when I blanched. We were sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee as he filled in his paperwork. We didn't give him any way to make sense of this and it's not that big of a crime in the grand scheme of things to a department overwhelmed with an incredible spike in Katrina immigrants relocating to this area. He asked if there was anyone who maybe wanted to get back at us, meaning me or "Mr. Cooper," as he calls him. No, I said. Not anymore, Hando said under his breath after the deputy got in his car to drive away.

Ralph said he will go to the hardware store in the afternoon to get enough concrete mix to seal the gravesite if it's how we choose to go. I would prefer not to have the bodies buried here. Probably, we don't really have a choice but we'll let Max make the final call.

So all this, it's unfinished business as we wait for Maximus to come back. And Max will address these onerous tasks first and then he will honor the men who stood with him in the fight. Only then will he come to me to face what has happened with our future.

I will wait for him to come to me in his own time, of course I will. I want it to be right. To be more right than anything. To be what he needs. I'd rather be the one he comes to last because I will be the one he stays with longest.

In the meantime, I have no energy but to wait. As I wait, I drowse on this honey-colored floor and remember the feeling of concrete turning to sand. Unbidden, a crystal clear memory intrudes ... of Max's hand on the back of my thigh. His fingers, drawing slowly along my skin. I lean into him, just as he wanted, crowd him, dare him. He digs in, striking suddenly. I grit my teeth.

Buck jerks awake and then jumps to his feet. We both go to the window. It is the car we've waited for. Max's car. Buck runs down the stairs barking wildly in joy but I stay where I am, a sentinel up high.

When he gets out of the passenger side of the car, Max seems stiff, wary. Hando has no doubt filled him in on things I didn't because I figured there was time enough for Max to learn the toll. But that time is here. We've waited for him to finish this. If there is another way, he will see it.

Max scans, his eyes taking in the scope of his place, his home. Ralph strolls from the stable. It is hard to believe what has transpired since the last time these two saw each other. Just before he starts walking toward Ralph, Max's eyes shoot straight up to where I am watching him. He knew I'd be here. And here I am. I put my hand on the window. He smiles so shyly at me. It clutches at my heart and brings tears to my eyes.

I know what's going to happen now. At first, I don't want to witness. So I stride quickly to our bedroom and take a shower. But as I'm rinsing shampoo from my hair, I realize that I am being a coward, that I thought I could somehow shirk responsibility because I don't see what they will do ... but the reality is, I am stronger than this. I am more loyal than this.

These three men intend to spare me from the final aspect of what we must do to ensure our lives. I owe them my loyalty to bear witness to what they must decide and what they will do. I will not turn from them as if what they do is disgusting to me. It just must be what it is: necessary.

With nothing but a towel around me, I go to the back bedroom, the one I've only just started decorating in shades of copper and mint green. At the window, I look our over the tall bushes and crepe myrtles near this section of the house. I am staring out beyond ... to a section of land between the stable and the slope down to the Little Tchefuncte River.

This is where Ralph has dug a large hole, under the spreading canopy of a large live oak. He used a small backhoe that Max had gotten when they'd cleared the property after the storm. I had seen him digging the deep hole early that morning, before the deputy had arrived. It's where he had brought Neva's remains. Where the deputy could witness that we intended to bury her and her unborn foal.

Now, I look down at the scene. Dirt is piled, clumpy and dark, along one side. Max, Hando and Ralph stand looking at Neva's form. I can tell Ralph is talking. Hando is silent. Max has a look on his face that is the savage warrior of old. He walks away from them, over near the dirt pile. Two bodies are there. They are darker clumps before the dirt clumps. I didn't notice them until Max neared them.

He stands looking down at them. His mouth purses. I can't see his eyes. His hands are behind his lower back. Ralph and Hando haven't moved. Neither one is talking.

Max reaches out with the toe of his shoe. He nudges one of the bodies. His mouth twists to one side; a sneer. His head tilts to one side as if he studies them, considers them. At this angle, I can see his face clearly. I see the cold disdain for conquered enemies. I see the lack of pity or remorse.

I see his Stoic nature. The way he is removed from this. His foot rests on a hip belonging to an enemy as he says something to the other men with him.

Hando walks toward Max. He hesitates when he reaches him. I am watching when Max kicks out at the body he'd been resting his foot upon. The form moves. Max kicks once more. The body disappears into the hole. Hando shoves the other one in behind.

My hand is on my mouth. I would cry for these three men but I cannot. We had to do this. I am grateful it was them and not me.

I know what will come next as Ralph climbs into the backhoe, moves it slowly toward Neva's form. I give myself permission to turn and not witness him pushing her into the hole atop the other bodies. Later, I know, I will go there, to her grave. That I will visit. After Hando helps Ralph layer concrete atop the grave. Once it becomes a tomb.

It is some time later that I hear the back door slide open and hear Maximus greet Buck and Buck greet him. By now, I have dried my hair, put on perfume and the silk negligee I wore on the first night of our honeymoon.

I stand still in the middle of our bedroom and listen. Shortly, I hear the tap in the downstairs bathroom go on. I picture Max washing his hands. 

By the time the water stops running, I am waiting for him in our bed, a sheet drawn toward my lap. I have thought about this so much but the truth is, I want to hold him ... I want to hold him to me in our bed, where we are safe again. Where yesterday wasn't a theory but reality.

Yet as soon as I hear his footfall on the bottom stair, I fly from the room and run to the top of the stairs. My hand is on the curved upper section of the banister. It clutches tight; I feel as if I've hit a cushion of heavy air. I look down at him.

He must have seen my form dart through the sunlight that falls from the bank of windows behind me for his eyes blink for a moment before focusing.

I freeze where I am, one foot poised over the first step down. He stops climbing; he is only two steps up. He is looking directly at me, blinking rapidly a few times. Time seems to pause. My heart is racing. I was so afraid it was going to be stuck in sluggish mode forever like it's been since morning.

"I had this all planned out," I say to him. "I was going to be in our bed, posed all perfectly, looking beguiling, breasts heaving like in the movies ... so you could come right in, rip off your clothes, pounce on me and play the conquering hero."

My lips twitch. I would grin at him, my joy to see him so great the grin would never stop, but perhaps he was hoping I'd be solemn instead. So I hold the grin in through force of will. I drink in the sight of him, down there, looking up at me, his head now tilting to one side as he regards me.

"Your plan sounds fitting. I shall wait, mistress ... until the count of three ... and then this hero shall conquer you," he says.

The count of three.

I walk down a step. "One," I say softly, my chin lowering. I count the steps to his heart as I descend toward where he has still not moved since he first saw me at the top of the stairs. "Two ... Three."

His eyes are not on mine as I descend. They watch my body, different parts. He is hungry for me. I understand that kind of hunger. It is the hunger for the one person who can prove to you that you are alive. It's what I feel for him in this moment. This close to him, right up in front of him ... He lets me press a warm, dry kiss along his neck. God. He smells and tastes so good there. It is the scent of life.

He remains stock still; a Stoic refusing to give in to temptation but wanting the temptation to succeed ... eventually. I slide my hand down his arm until I play with his fingers. My voice is a flushed whisper against his ear, saying, "Go on. Conquer. Do it here."

He swallows; it feels dry, measured, intense. His heat would scorch me this close. I put his hand on the back of my thigh. He grips, releases. In a cool voice, he says, "I am sure this is not the accepted Roman ritual of the conquering hero returning home."

"I never was one to stand on ceremony."

"So I have noticed."

"But I am one who will love you always," I say as I move from his neck to his lips. We kiss with closed mouths; chaste, tiny, still so intimate somehow. We do not pull at each other with our hands. Our bodies are starving; our minds are beyond ravenous.

"I have noticed this as well," he says as my lips move from his.

Now is when our eyes examine the inner toll these days have taken on the other. I see in him a weariness that makes me ache. I also see his strength, resolution. Courage born of vision. When his face changes and his tiny forced smile dissolves into parted lips that wish they had the words to tell me anything that would take away the sadness he must see inside me, I press a thumb along the worry lines at his forehead.

"Tell me that what we did was right," I say to him. "It was right, wasn't it?"

"Close your eyes," he whispers.

I obey him. It is the quality of his voice.

His voice is low, firm. "Picture Neva after they shot her. Look at her in death."

My eyes flash open. I stare into his eyes, searching him.

"And tell me, Anna, that you were wrong."

My fingers pause along the worry lines that come as he looks at me, as he wills me to accept that what we did was what was needed to protect many lives. Ours. Our friends. Our family.

He moves so slowly. I know he's going to hug me because his shoulders bunch first and then his arms glide to surround me. It is soft, this hug; light, seeking succor as much as giving it. But it also the hold of a man who feels comfort in the role he feels is part of his manly duty toward his woman.

"I had rehearsed something to say to you, Maximus," I tell him. I don't remember what the words were anymore. They seemed perfect when I'd pictured myself saying them to him. "Do you have any idea how you made me feel when I found out that it never really crossed your mind to leave this life? I never expected that is how you'd feel. How I wish I could remember what I wanted to say, to tell you! I owe these words to you, Max. I know I do ..."

"Cara, do not feel you have to tell me any words. Show me instead," he whispers. I watch his lips form these words. He tilts his head up to me; I always notice how cool he looks doing this on these rare occasions when some odd topography makes me tower over him, like I am now, standing on the upper step. I wonder if this is how he feels, seeing me look up at him.

I bend toward him, my hands on either side of his face. He whispers my name; I whisper his ... our names mingle in the air that comes from us just before I kiss him. It is a long kiss; deep, searching, finding.

It turns to passion before either of us is aware. We break apart, gasping, lips still on fire, tongues wanting so much more.

"It's never really home until you're here," I say to him. My fingers are busy with the buttons of his shirt even as he buries his face in my neck. When I feel his teeth, I wrap a leg around his thigh, arch back, revel in the feel of him. I can be so selfish.

He lifts me with one arm. I wrap my other leg around him. He climbs the steps. I tell him that I've needed him. That I was scared. That I thought I might lose all this. It's all over now, he says, as he kicks the bedroom door shut behind us, before Buck has the chance to follow us inside.

The gods are with us now, he tells me as he reaches the bed and we tumble in. How can you be so sure, I ask him as we work together on his pants. He stills my hands before sliding them in over him. Because we are still here, he says.

He kisses me softly before standing to shrug off his shirt, lower his pants and toe off his shoes. His eyes are sharp. He has predator's eyes. But when he climbs in over me, all he does at first is snuggle in over me, his ear against my tummy, his arms around my waist.

Comfort. This is what he needs. Wordless comfort. It feels like heaven to me. To have this man hold me this way, so familiar, so easy, so whole.

I let him take all the comfort he needs. I would give him this and all I am. He just needs to hold me and to be held by me. To connect with me. To know this life is still only possible because of him.

His arms flex every so often as he moves to get more comfortable. He rubs his cheek against me and it feels sensuous with the movement of the silk that is between my skin and his beard. He wraps his leg around mine. I stroke his hair and kiss the top of his head. Before long, he falls asleep.

I am still damp between my thighs. And in my cleavage there is sweat caused by his breath rushing there, hot and demanding, even in his sleep. He consumes me, even at rest. In his sleep, he clings to me and I believe in the impossible, that I could deserve the bottomless depth of his love.

When he begins to snore, I shift under him, intending to leave him to this rest in the bed. But the moment I move, his head lifts sharply, wary, on edge. He has awakened with an abruptness that actually scares me for the ferocious look in his eyes as he stares into mine.

"It's just me," I say softly.

He visibly fights to toss off the tension. But there is something he has wanted to know, to believe. Now is when he asks for his own reassurance. He rises to lean on an elbow. His other hand cups my face gently. He searches my eyes. "They did not hurt you?"

"No, my love. They scared me but that's all."

Anger flashes. He has the right to it. "That is too much, Anna. It pains me to think of you, frightened."

"Oh, hush. It's over." I slap his cheek lightly, as if in rebuke. His eyes narrow at me. "It is over, you said so yourself ... Max, I want to know what happened ... in Rome. I want you to tell me how you got away and why they're not coming after us and how you came back."

"I never left this time, if that is what you mean."

"What did you do? Where are they? Are they dead? You couldn't have sent them back in time or all this wouldn't exist. Right?"

"Not now. Later. Now I want to make love with you. I have thought of little else since London."

"Maximus, please. I want to know."

The thing about Maximus is, when it comes to such matters as getting what he wants, he can be pretty ruthless and persuasive. You don't stand much of a chance. At least, I guess I never have.

No, I take that back.

He would never force me. He just would never stop trying to convince me. And he always acts as if he presumes I want to give him what he wants. That's not the best quality but it's not the worst.

We ended up making love. As he wanted. He talked me into it. He quoted a few lines of Roman erotic poetry, got this look in his eyes, and I remembered that I adored him ... and then he touched me. Then again, it was me who'd invited him to be the conquering hero.

It was slow. It was rough at times ... we both needed that.

Some hours later, we sat in the tub with candles lit around us. His stomach grumbled at its emptiness. I told him I'd feed him only after he told me what happened.

Now I sit on the back deck, alone, reflecting on his tale. He is upstairs, sleeping. The stars are out tonight. No clouds. Frogs are making noisy crescendos. I stare straight ahead and think of what he's told me.

I asked him if he saw her. Only across a distance, he said to me. How did that feel, I asked. She knows I am happy, he said. I wonder if that is enough for her and I imagine that it is. I think it's how I'd feel.

When they got to Rome, five men met the private jet of Luke's company as it taxied to a stop, Maximus told me. His eyes, when he said this, they looked so odd.

The five men, Lucius and Maximus went straight to the Coliseum. It was just closing for the evening and the men had already paid handsomely to arrange for the privilege of a late visitation. It was just dusk, Maximus noted to me.

I could picture it. Rosy hues. Blue blush of night beginning to creep in. Noise still humming from all the people who'd still be milling about. There would even be a few inside. But what Maximus saw, no one else did. So no one paid them any mind as they stood on the wooden walkway, looking about.

Max's eyes sharpened when he heard his name called by a woman's voice he'd know forever. He looked to his right, where he knew she'd be, and he saw the rift, the vision of Elysium beyond. It was the rift between this world and eternity that he'd seen when he neared death in the arena death during the final battle with Commodus.

His hand had again stretched toward this rift; reaching out, opening the door in the imposing grey-white wall. He said this time, he felt the weight of the door as he pushed it open.

I did not move my feet, he told me solemnly, and I knew this was the key.

The six men gathered near him as they realized what he was looking at. They could not see it themselves so they watched his face, his eyes, his arm as it reached out. They spoke to him but their voices were like flies buzzing; he was between the worlds and the plainest voice he heard was his son's. He called me 'Papa,' Maximus told me, his eyes misting at the memory.

Papa. For a moment, I hear it in the soft darkness of this night ... a small boy's voice ... calling him Papa.

Maximus told me that hearing that voice, calling to him, that for a moment he could have let himself forget any other consideration. But he forced himself to not get lost in this, to remember he had his feet in our time, to not walk forward into a place he had wanted to go into in the past. He shook his head to clear it. He looked back at Lucius.

"Here is the way, Lucius Verus. I offer you my hand to guide you away from this time. Indeed, the gods are with us so who would I be to deny them their will as to your fate? This rift leads to my home, where you will be welcome," he had said.

Lucius had grinned. "You remain intent on pretending a level of composure and amusement, Maximus. We shall be great friends when we return."

"Distant friends, I believe," Maximus responded. I could picture him giving that characteristic slight bow of deference to Lucius.

Lucius, however, opted to send the other men through first. I asked Max if he was scared to make the journey and wanted the others to go first so he'd know it'd be safe for him. But Max said that was not it, that Lucius was no coward. The reason the others went first, Max said, was because Lucius wanted to be there to force Max to do as he'd promised.

And that made Lucius the final one through the rift.

Lucius took Max's hand and let him guide him through, from this world into the world Max had access to.

And when Lucius was over, Max was the only one whose feet remained in our world. The other men looked about them, waiting on Lucius for guidance on where to go. The others were through the gate, most gazing with awe toward where Max's wife and son stood upon the hill where his estate was. Imagine how they felt? To be in ancient times, when Rome was in its glory!

Lucius, though, realized something was not as he expected once he recovered from the thrill of passing through the rift from the modern Coliseum.

"What was it?" I had asked Maximus as he talked, mesmerizing me with his tale.

"He forgot that greed blinds a man to the obvious," Max said. His voice was grim.

"I don't understand. What wasn't right? What did he notice?"

"The light, Anna. The light was wrong."

It dawned on Lucius but not quickly enough. He gazed around, confused, trying to figure out why something seemed wrong. He turned back to where he could see Max and probably could see behind him the ruins of the Coliseum, where Max stood anchored to our time.

Max said Lucius turned away, gazing over his shoulder and asking Max if this was his wife and son, waiting up there along a cypress-lined lane.

"They were expecting you? When is this that you have taken us to?" Lucius asked.

Max said he believes Lucius was beginning to understand where he was. That he was trying even then to distract Max, to lull him into complacency. Knowing he'd been out-smarted, was he hoping Max would drop his guard so that Lucius could rush toward him ... and find the only way out of where Max had delivered him?

What had you done, I asked Max, as his lips pursed at the memory.

I can hear his voice, the calm strength in it, as he told this man who would have stolen a life from us: "You are in Elysium, Lucius Verus. Where the gods meant for you to be."

Max said Lucius understood it all then. That Max had always known this is what he would do if his plan worked. That Max would have been willing to sacrifice himself to bring them with him to Elysium if it had been the only way ... but in the end, there had been this one chance that Lucius would not realize until it was too late ... and then Max could enact the plan he'd begun strategizing the moment I told him that Lucius wanted to go home.

As Lucius reacted, wide eyed and furious, Maximus simply stepped back. Now he was not in their reach, though he could still see across this rift to where his wife and son wait for him in Elysium.

But these men and Lucius could not reach Max because no part of him remained where they were. 

And so they are marooned in the land of the dead.

Did they call to you, I asked him, beg you to bring them back? If they did, I could no longer hear them, he said. Why not, I asked. His eyes closed. Because that rift closed when he stepped back from it ... all those years, it had waited for his answer, for him to enter that gate. What he'd done had closed the rift.

Another will open in the future, he whispered to me as I held him tight, feeling so sad for him and not knowing why it struck me this way but it did. It will appear when death again opens the way to Elysium for me, he said. But not yet. Not yet.

"Anna, you have to understand. What Lucius had been seeking from me was to return through whatever rift or portal through which I came from the arena to this time. But what he'd heard me talking about was not that; it was the shining light to Elysium."

"But you told him you could do what he wanted, you could take him back to where he had been. You lied to him?" I still never expect lies from Maximus; or rather, I expect that I can tell when he lies.

"Was it really a lie?" he asked me, solemn as if I was really quibbling over this. "His greed had already blinded him to anything but what he wanted to believe I was saying, that is certain. But I did bring him to where he should have been. He can do no harm there."

"I kept thinking you'd have no choice but to take him back to when he was alive ... I kept waiting to lose my memories of you ... of us ... of this life."

"If it had been in my power, I still would not have taken him back to that time. The gods would never have wanted that."

"They owe you one, then, by my way of reckoning."

"Never tell the gods what they owe you, Anna. They have a way of granting it."

"Then why pray to them?"

"For guidance. For favors."

"We're saying the same thing."

"Then we have our reward already."

"What did you do when you left the Coliseum?"

"I went to the Mausoleum of Hadrian. I offered my gratitude to the gods for this life with you."

And I know, without him saying, he had words with his ancestors, and with Marcus Aurelius. I am sure he asked them to watch over his first wife and son, to tell them he will be with them again some day, that he loves them.

He said he left Rome then. And felt at peace with the choices he had made.

"Why didn't you tell me that you told Ralph who you are?"

He shrugs, digs his chin in a bit.  "When he met Hando and then Egan, he felt there was something that needed saying. He asked me certain questions; I felt he deserved to know. He has, in so many aspects, thrown his lot in with us these last months. He can be trusted."

"Yeah. You trusted him with watching over me this time, too. He could have been killed. I thought I'd die if they'd hurt him."

Maximus says nothing. What could he say, really?

"Why Hando?" I ask him.

"He would be ruthless. He would protect you to the death."

"They killed Neva because of me. Because I didn't say yes right away. She was innocent and it's my fault she died."

"They would have found another reason to kill her. We're lucky they stopped with her."

But I know him better than that. I feel the hitch in his breathing. I know Neva's death pains him. She was a sacrifice. Heartless sacrifice and I cannot erase the sight of her when they put her in the back run, where Maximus used to ride her when he was teaching her special maneuvers. I didn't know what they were going to do to her. I didn't know that they would simply shoot her. That they would turn to look at each other as she struggled, air gurgling from her mouth as died. And that Luke would turn to me, coldness in his eyes, satisfied with the demonstration. And say to me, "This was your doing, Ann. Bring Maximus to me or all the rest die, one by one. The massacre here will be your doing."

"How did you figure out who Luke was? Lucius, I mean."

His eyes blink open. He turns his head to gaze at me. "At first, I just wanted to investigate who this person was that was courting you."

"He wasn't courting me. He wanted me to bake for him ... or, rather, that's what I thought."

"He was courting you. He wanted some allegiance from you when the time came to take me on. I had a sense of him, even then. It was not a coincidence."

"I never felt comfortable about the coincidence of him turning up in Folsom. At least I got that right."

"It was the coincidence of him in Rome of which I was speaking."

"How did that happen?"

"The gods were not done testing me, Anna."

I feel the soft warmth of his groin, the coarse hair there, as he gently nuzzles it up against me. I tell myself that here, right here, this is a perfect example of a detail I forgot when I was trying so desperately to remember every single thing he did that night I had tried to memorize and stash away inside so no one could take it from me.

He blows soft air across the top of my head I remember the first time his breath against my neck made me shiver. A moment later, I had felt his lips on my spine, in the part that dips before rising to the swell of my buttocks. I like to kiss him there as well. He has a small curl of hair there.

Reaching over my shoulder, I run a finger down the slope of his nose. "We have a secret, you and I. Do we tell the others?"

"Are you changing the subject?"

"Yes, and apparently not very deftly."

"We do not tell the others. Neither Hando nor Ralph will say anything about this to anyone."

"Oh." My smile goes away. "Sorry. That wasn't the secret I meant."

"Can you live with that secret, Anna? Be truthful with me."

He breathes in deeply as he waits for my answer. When his chest expands, I feel his bare skin all along my back.

"Yes. I can live with it." He buries his face in my neck; his fingers work to drag my hair away so that he can kiss me there. "Does that surprise you that I can?"

"You are a strong woman. Brave. I am not surprised you believe you can live with this."

"But you think I can't?"

"I believe you have a tender heart. I treasure that as much as I respect your brave nature."

"I'm so not brave. I'm such a wimp."

"No, it is I who am the wimp in this family."

I feel laughter inside me. I turn my head; he raises his; our eyes meet.

"Why are you the wimp?"

"I tremble at the notion of that collection of Barry White CD's that Hando tells me arrived this morning."

"You really are a wimp ... you're scared of Hando finding out you dance with me!"

He gives me a fake shiver; the entire bed shakes in response. I laugh; he smiles. His eyes are not smiling; they are worried about me. I can't keep up the laughter.

"You know how I really feel?" I ask him. "Time is what's important. We can't fritter it away like I used to. We have to make it count, the time we have to live."

"We will."

"I know, Maximus. I know now ..."

"What do you know, cara?"

I know. I know what he sacrificed to stay with me. There is a reason for all of this. It is worth it. This life is not in vain.