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you?”
    I shrugged. “I have to admit it’s a little odd to see you with someone after so many years of your being alone, but I’m happy for you. I’m glad you have someone to take care of you.”
    He smiled as he looked ahead to the dark road. “It feels a little odd to me too. After your mother died I never thought I would ever want to be with another woman, but with time you learn to let go and move on. Betty will never replace Ellen, but she is what I need right now in my life.”
    I turned my attention back to the streets flying by as our car made its way down St. Charles Avenue. Ever since I had seen the figure walking through Jackson Square, my doubts about my future with Dallas had been eating away at me. I wondered if I should just take my father’s advice and begin a new life with Dallas. But how could I move on to the future when there was still so much of my past left unresolved? How could I be with Dallas when I had not yet put David behind me?
    When he finally pulled up in front of our Uptown New Orleans home, I felt a strange sense of relief to have made it back to my childhood haven.
    The three-story white antebellum house with its Corinthian column facade had been wedding gift to my mother and father. For the first few years of their marriage, my parents had lovingly restored the run down home into a Garden District showplace. Every original fixture had been painstakingly repaired, every scrap of wood refinished, and every plaster inlay retouched. The house had been a project that had joined my parents in life and, after the death of my mother many years ago, remained as a reminder of the love the three of us had once shared. In many ways the house stood as a symbol of my mother, a tribute to her beauty, refinement, and infinite patience with all things.
    I looked around the shell drive to see where Dallas had parked our rental car after his early departure from the reception. I breathed a sigh of relief to see the small red Honda Accord pulled up right next to the garage at the end of the driveway.
    “ Maybe you should go and straighten everything out with him now,” my father suggested behind me.
    I turned to him and nodded.
    He gave me an encouraging smile and then started for the front steps.
    I stood for a moment out in the middle of the driveway and took in the heavy aroma of the New Orleans night around me. The scent of magnolias mixed with ligustrum filled the air. I had missed the smell of this city. In the silence of the night I could hear the faint click clack of a streetcar making its way down nearby St. Charles Avenue. I closed my eyes for a moment and filled my senses with the city surrounding me. I found it curious that when confronted by tribulations we find comfort in what we have left behind. As if the imprints of childhood are part of an inner rebooting mechanism for the soul. We escape to what we were before living changed us into what we have become.
    Inside the purple satin purse Colleen had designed to match my bridesmaid dress, my cell phone began ringing. I toyed with the idea of ignoring the call, considering the lateness of the hour. But then I remembered my publishing assistant, Dora O’Rourke, who often called after business hours with important questions about my book. I fumbled with my purse until I was finally able to retrieve my phone and answer the call.
    “ Hello?”
    “ Hello, Nicci. It’s Simon La Roy. Forgive the hour,” his high-pitched voice said over the phone. “I wasn’t sure if you would still be at your cousin’s wedding,” he confided.
    “ Simon?” I stared down the drive. “How did you get my number? And how did you know about my cousin’s wedding?”
    “ My dear woman, do you think a man like me couldn’t find you? You know what I do, and considering how well acquainted you have been with two of my best employees, should it even surprise you that I know what I know.”
    “ Dallas doesn’t work for you anymore,” I stated emphatically.