New beginnings on the other side

John loves his wife, it was his late mother-in-law that he didn't abide. The feeling was mutual. When she died, John claimed her old Baptist Family Bible with all the names of generations of the family tree carefully inked in.
His name had been entered in pencil.
Maybe that was because John was raised Roman Catholic. His bride tried being a Catholic for a while, but it just didn't do it for her. So they compromised and have been Methodists ever since.

Second floor Food Court has a view of the Mississippi.

John used to live with his wife and family on what he now calls "the worst side of the Mississippi" near an oil refinery. He and his wife worked hard, paid their mortgage and put the kids through college.
Then Katrina came. When he returned to his house, "it was full of oil" and completely ruined. The company offered $22,000 for the property, take it or leave it.
They took it.
John salvaged his mother-in-law's Bible and other items and moved across the river to higher ground.
He is retired now, serving as the resident philosopher at the Food Court he keeps clean by the riverside in downtown New Orleans. He drives his wife 75 miles to work each day. She's got a good job with an antiques company so they've chosen to commute from their new place. "We spend $15 a day for gas," he smiled.
When he stands by the gleaming Pepsi machine on the second floor food court, he can see the smokestack way across the river where he grew up, and you somehow get the feeling that he's happy where he is right now, having put together a new life for his family after so much trauma.
Even his mother-in-law might approve.