Fighting For Love

Chapter 8

They drove with a comfortable silence surrounding them in the car. Niamha looked out the window and noticed that Michael had made a turn onto an unknown street and the sight shocked her. She had never expected to see the Lower Ninth Ward still looking devastated years after Katrina hit. Half the block looked as it did when the news and media showed all those clips and videos years ago. She looked around and saw that it looked like a ghost town....well not exactly...because somehow there was in the air was life. Like the people that hung on their porches and waved at Michael as they passed by, they seem happy. There was also a lingering of blues music, and the sound of saxophones danced into the breeze, children ran around and neighbors chatted their hearts out. The neighborhood was so alive, Niamha thought to herself. She saw Michael glance at her before turning his attention back to the road.

"I hope you're hungry." She heard Michael say before turning into a driveway of a house that was among the many ones still standing amongst all the debris. After parking the car Michael came around and helped her out of the car. He noticed she was awfully quiet, he reached over and took her hand in his and pulled her closer to him. He placed his hands on her hips. "What's running through that pretty head of yours?"

Niamha looked up at him under her lashes and Michael knew then that she was going to drive him crazy. He felt himself start to grow happy with her being so close, but he managed to control himself.

"I never thought things were still like this...I thought-"

"Things were all cleaned up?"

"Well yeah, do you know how much money my brother; I mean millions of people donated?"

Michael shook his head and chuckled. "A lot of people donated money and things were fixed. Businesses were able to reopen, the French Quarter was maintained, McDougal was able to remodel, Red Cross bought us some poisonous trailers and threw us some food. Things happened, just didn't happen back here."

"I can see that, yet everyone seems so..." her voice trailed off and she looked around, "happy. Despite the obvious devastation."

"What devastation?" Michael turned her around so she had her back pressed against him and wrapped his arms around her waist and said, "I want you to close your eyes and imagine something for me."

Niamha quickly obliged, especially since she felt like she was in heaven standing there like that, "Closed." She said.

"I want you to imagine a furious river coming thru destroying your city. Your childhood. The place you grew up. Trees everywhere. Your neighbor that you've known for years dead floating down the street. The candy lady's car from four houses down hanging from a tree like Christmas ornament. You see your best friend's dog hanging on to a tree for dear life and you search as far as your eyes will allow you and your best friend is nowhere to be found. Then you remember that your mother had made you go to bed that night and your older brother and his family are downstairs wondering if they should have forced everyone in the house to go down to the Superdome with everybody else. And now-the next day-you are standing on the roof with your pregnant mother and grandmother scared as hell because you can't find your brother and his family or anyone else that you have known for that matter. Its only you guys standing there and you wait for days looking for help to come. Now-" he sighed, "once you have a grip on that picture I want you to open your eyes turn around and look at me. Do I look like a six-foot-three piece of devastation?"

Niamha did so and a tear slide down her cheek before she whispered her answer, "No."

Michael whispered against her cheek. "See devastation isn't a part of this Wards vocabulary, if anything Katrina taught us the value of love and life and that in a blink of an eye this in your almost perfect word can change just like that. Now look over there."