“I like it here, you know,” she ventured. He glanced over at her and away, so quick she knew she’d been right that it was something he needed to hear. “How it’s filled to bursting with color and history and sound. How every third person on the street has an instrument case and how everything I eat is delicious. The whole city smells like you.”

He laughed. “You saying I smell like mule shit and river water?”

“No.” She poked him in the side. “Shut up. It’s more like you always smell like you’ve been cooking something amazing, and it’s always different. Spicy crawfish, cracked wheat bread, grilled corn on the cob.” She shrugged and looked out the window. “It’s nice.”

A woman watering her plants nodded as they drove past. Andra blinked and turned her head for a second look, because she thought the woman had been white. It was too late to make sure she’d seen right, though, because LJ was already turning the corner.

This was a new street she hadn’t seen before, but there were just as many weed-choked vacant lots as on his street. One held only a sun-faded old sign with a church logo that said, “With God’s grace, we will rebuild.” A little farther down, there was a foundation with the floor still intact. Linoleum gave way to a square of bathroom tile with no walls to guard it from the weather.

Andra’s fingers started to hurt, and she loosened them where they were clenched too tightly in her lap. LJ took a right, and a second later they rumbled over a bridge and crossed back into the main city. The houses grew bigger and closer together, porches shrinking to painted concrete stoops, with colorful doors and shutters fronted by lines of tightly parked cars.

“Can I ask you a horrible question?” she said quietly.

He glanced over, then returned his attention to traffic. “You can ask me anything you want to, Andie-girl. You know that.”

She hadn’t meant to bring it up, but it had been nagging at her mind every time she went outside, and she couldn’t keep it in anymore. She took a breath. “Did you ever think it might be easier to get past everything that happened during Katrina if you moved? Even just to a different part of town?”

He tapped his palm on the steering wheel, but otherwise there was no indication he’d heard her. His face looked the way it had when she’d brought him his old, spray-painted half door: as if he didn’t quite know if he was happy or sad.

The Datsun engine went quiet, then loud again as he shifted gears, and his dark eyes flicked to the side mirror.