There's a sweet hint of rain in the breezes that moves through the open door to the porch. The wind-chimes create melodies in a diminished key beneath the surf of rustling leaves. Grace stirs uncomfortably from her spot in the chair, hearing a steady roil of thunder.

I sit in the Dining Room, at the table by the window, the curtains feathering across my arm. I can't believe, after years of hating this city, that I may be leaving. Just when I was growing to like it.

It's funny how that is. What has changed?

It's very simple.

I sit with my friends at a bar overlooking the Ohio. I'm talking to two of my friends, but I am overhearing the conversation between him and another one of my other friends. My friend has asked how things are going:

"I still haven't said 'I love you,'" he says, "I'm afraid it will freak him out. I'm working up to it. I'll say 'I love you... and Grace.'" My friend leans closer so I won't hear, "Well Hugshyhermit has Trust Issues."

The storm hits like breaks between songs at a concert, wild bursts of applause between silent expectations. Sitting by the window, rain splashes up from the sill and hits my arm, and Grace sits nervously close. From the chair, I have a vantage out past the front porch and into the front yard where the lowest leaves of the Gum trees surrender their silver undersides; turn slightly and I can see the stairs with my sister's photographs and part of the kitchen. Books and magazines sit in varied piles with the halphazardly-collected art pottery on sections of the piano, bookshelves, low tables. A row of photographs line the mantle on either side of the clock with the art-glass panels; rugs of various size and color are scattered throughout, loops hanging here and there, in stages of disrepair from Grace's use as a scratching pad. The house has become a part of me.

We sat on the porch. He in the rocking chair I'd bought at a yard sale and painted fire-hydrant yellow; me in the slightly-rusting glider with the basketweave design in the curved metal back. Earlier we'd filled the planters with Ivies, Daisies, Stonecrop - trailing vines with tiny lavender, white and yellow flowers.

"We've done a lot," I said. "I'd gotten used to doing things on my own, but it's much better when you have someone you can do things with. You haven't minded?"

He looks surprised, "I love it."

He hesitates and continues, "There's a difference between contentment and happiness. Do you know the difference? I think people always want to be happy and are disappointed when they aren't what some image in a movie tells them. I think it's better to be content - and hope for moments of happiness. You know? I have moments of happiness, but I'm content. Very content." He hesitates again, "and right now, I'm happy."

"Wow."

And what I don't say, is that I'm happy too.