It would be wrong to say things hadn’t changed since he’d last set foot in New Orleans. A great deal about life here had altered completely in fifteen years. The city had never had so much direct sunlight before. Katrina had knocked over some of the shady trees on the busiest streets, and these days St. Charles Avenue blared in the afternoon sun. But it was February, a blessed month in New Orleans, not too hot or too cold. Years in Afghanistan had taught him what both temperatures really felt like. Even the city’s humidity wasn’t going to bug him anymore. Not that he intended to stay long enough to really get to experience the summer heat. He’d be out of there in a week. He kicked a stone as he walked, smiling at a woman who waited at a bus stop with her baby. His duffel, slung over his shoulder, swung as he moved. All in all, a good decision to take the slowest pace possible. Delaying the inevitable helped despite the futility of the act. Eventually, he was going to have to see his mother and face up to the fact he’d deliberately not come to his father’s funeral.
