Love and Hope in the French Quarter

We're married.

Walking through a deserted French Quarter, my people blown by hurricane to the four corners of the world, my tough little Yankee girl at my side from day one, we passed by a boarded wedding chapel.

I stopped her and said, "Last chance. This is as low as I've ever been. You want out, I don't blame you."

She said, without breathing, intense dark eyes staring into me, "Never. Never."

So I said, "I marry you. I marry you. I marry you. Here in my city, just us, under this setting sun, I marry you."

And we took this picture, as the sun faded to pink over the empty and quiet French Quarter.