Prologue
Late April 1912
The clouds sagged low and gray over the skyscrapers of Manhattan, so dark and ominous that one could feel the tide of grief lap over the city, the angel of death breathing down their throats. The air outside was heavy with moisture and virulent sorrow which the bartender assumed is what lured his lone customer in at such an odd hour. He sat at the end of the bar his nose deep in his glass of scotch and ever so often he would let out a melancholy sigh that fed the gloom of the day.
Every once and a while he would beckon for him to refill his glass and each time the bartender gave him a cautionary glance. This man looked to be in his mid thirties,well dressed in a suit and tie, his dark hair slicked back over his head. He must have been of some wealth because every time he refilled him he'd slap a generous dollar bill on the table without so much as grumbling for change. The bartender knew it would not do well for this man, this person of privilege, to be seen stumbling around
Midtown in the early hours of the day but after a while he had come not to care. Leave him be, he told himself. No reason for him to meddle in the gritty affairs of the moneyed.
"You all right there, sir." He asked carefully, topping him off for the third time. He didn't do so much as grunt, but as he withdrew the bottle after only filling the glass half way there appeared a brief spark in his flaccid, dark eyes.
"Leave it." He croaked. His voice was hoarse and brittle from too many smokes or too much crying, that he couldn't tell. Still, he wasn't the kind of person to deny a man his alcohol. He understood his desire to sink into inebriated stupor. He could see that it was a heavy grief that weighed on this man's shoulders.
It was around his sixth glass of scotch that he retrieved a small, square piece of parchment from his coat pocket and began to turn it over in his hands, thumbing its tattered ends. And then he began to croon to it.
The bartender sighed in exasperation. He hated when they started to sing. Even the liveliest drunks, his Irish kinsman who sang their merry tunes in his bar late at night, assailed his ears. The sad drunks were the worst though, their cracked voices and downhearted tunes made his heart heave for the things he had lost.
Come to me my melancholy baby, Cuddle up and don't be blue . . .
All your fears are foolish fancy, maybe. You know dear that I'm in love with you...
The bartender finally walked up and snatched the bottle of scotch away. He looked down at the piece of yellowed paper the man was holding and realized that it was not a card at all but a photograph.
At first he thought he must have cut it from a magazine for no girl he'd ever laid eyes on had ever been that pretty. She was ivory skinned, with rich curls swept on top of her head. Her lucid eyes stared almost accusingly out of the paper and directly out at the poor fellow, full lips parted as if about to say something to the man that coveted her image.
"Is that your girl?" He asked, taking his empty glass and wiping it clean of alcohol with a dirty rag. The man nodded at first but then began to slowly shake his head.
"I suppose she was once. But now she's gone." He said feebly yet not so much as choking back a tear.
"I'm sorry to hear that, sir. It's a shame. Such a lovely lass." He slapped a hand on the man's shoulder but it rendered no physical response.
"She's gone." He repeated. "And I do anything to have her back. Anything to have my Rose back." He said, his voice growing in volume and fortitude.
"Oh I'm sure you'll see her again someday when the good Lord sees fit."
"Oh, I will." He said fiercely. "And when I do I won't let her leave me. Not ever." And for a moment the bartender saw the fiery fervor of a jilted soul in his sallow face.
But it wasn't long before he dissolved back into despair and began to curse and demand more alcohol. It was then that the bartender threw down his rag and threw the dejected fellow right out on his duff.
The bartender watched as the man hobbled to his feet. He dusted his suit free of grit and removed a small bottle of brandy from the inside of his lapel and took one long swig. He watched him set off down the street singing once more, crying for his melancholy baby to come back to him.
And at the same time, somewhere only a few miles away, the girl in the picture, his melancholy baby, was weeping too. Sobbing tears of joy as she was reunited with a lost love.