“Stubborn part of me says no.” He leaned back into the seat until it creaked, draping his wrist over the steering wheel. “That place is my family. My big family, you know? They all raised me up. And the Lower Ninth needs people who remember what it was, or it really will be lost. The city wanted to give up and turn the whole thing into a park, you know.”

He frowned at the knot of traffic at the next light and whipped a quick turn down a side street, bombing down a couple of blocks until he found a one-way with the right direction of arrow. The tires stuttered and bumped over rough pavement, and Andra grabbed the door handle to brace herself when he wove around one of the bigger potholes.

“I never wanted to give up on New Orleans. But then I left, didn’t I?” His sensual lips pulled tight into a grimace of a smile. “It’s been a long time, but sometimes it still hurts looking down the street. The Graviers’ house is gone. Aimee’s house is falling down. There are people from Alabama living in LaToya’s place. Most folks never came back. They just washed on down the river to someplace where the water didn’t run so high.”

He stopped in the middle of the block to let a kid on a tricycle pedal across the street.

“I almost don’t want to say this, you know?” He let out a breath of a laugh, rubbing at his lower lip. “But it was easier in Montana.” He put the truck back in gear and hit the gas. “I was easier. I didn’t spend so much time filling out paperwork: trying to get insurance to pay, trying to get Road Home money to come through, doing everybody’s Make It Right applications, wrestling building permits.”

She frowned. “What do you mean? Your house has been done for years, hasn’t it?”

His shoulders hunched, and he glanced out the side window. “Everybody knows I went away to college. Some of the older folks around here can’t read too good, and the schools in the Lower Ninth didn’t reopen for two years after Katrina, so the rest of us were a little behind, too. Those insurance companies want to keep their money and say no, your papers weren’t right. They don’t help you out none.”

He swapped hands on the steering wheel, lifting two fingers to wave at a guy crossing the street with a cello-sized music case in a trailer behind his bike. The biker grinned back, and she couldn’t tell if they knew each other or were just being friendly.

LJ looked over at her. “You asking about moving away from memories for me or you?”