Who: Hal Patton and Rhea Bennett Where: a street in Lakeview When: Thursday June 3, 2010 afternoon What: Hal and Rhea just so happen to visit the street they used to live on at the same time.
It wasn't exactly the easiest thing, moving back to New Orleans. In fact, Hal never really figured he would head back there, especially after Katrina, but being away from Rhea for so long proved to be a little too hard for him. After running into her the day before and making a fool out of himself in the process, he wasn't exactly confident in his decision to be back in the area. It definitely wasn't the place he grew up in, in fact he hadn't even been back to Lakeview at all since leaving all those years ago. His parents house would have to be gone, even if it had somehow withstood Katrina, it wouldn't ever be home to him again. His father had passed on and his mother wasn't likely to ever come back to New Orleans. But there was still a part of him that was quite curious about what Lakeview looked like now. Whether or not there was anything on that street that had once made him think of home. Would the Bennett house still be there? The tire swing on the giant Oak down the street? He wondered if anyone who used to live there still did. Or if they had even bothered rebuilding that street at all.
When he found out he had the day off after walking all the way to work, he decided that his curiosity would win out this time. It was clearly a better option than stalking Rhea and making a fool out of himself again, and it sounded more appealing than going back to his place and taking a nap. It didn't take that long at all to get to his old neighborhood, he could have walked with his eyes closed to get to where his old house should have been, but it wasn't there. Nothing on the street was in the least bit familiar, except for the street sign itself. It was an experience he never thought he would have to deal with, looking around him at something that should have brought him comfort and feeling just as empty as the day he had last walked down that street. Katrina had affected him, but never as much as it did at that moment. A person should always feel like they could go home, that there would one place in the world where they were always welcome. But this was just a reminder to him that he didn't have that place, that he was alone in the world. Standing there, he was so transfixed with what he was seeing that even if someone was standing right next to him, he probably wouldn't have noticed it at all!