Booker Charles Roth DeWitt was no better equipped to raise a child than a monkey is to run a multimillion dollar drug ring. He'd lived in the same dumpy apartment in Queens for thirteen years - since he left home at twenty-one, fresh into the Pinks, all dressed up in utter naivety. A few years after he stopped working full time for the Pinks, leaving them a scowling, war-hardened bastard with little compassion for other human beings, Booker found himself in a little bar called Bluebell's Cradle in Brooklyn, listening to a raspy little harlot they called Jessamine, her dark skin stretched across plush curves, draped in a low-cut sapphire dress showing more cleavage than a painting of Aphrodite.
Booker had sat at the bar, four drinks in, listening to some whining boy barely past puberty moan about a girl to the rather attractive young lady serving the bar. It would be years before flapperdom took over the Roaring Twenties, but something that Booker would later learn was that Esmee Abigail Terrence was a beastly little thing, entirely too happy to chop her hair up to her ears, dye the brown a rich black, and coat her make up on until she looked like a high class prostitute, just to make a point. Her dress was a sleek, form-fitting bit of fabric, the ends snipped up about five inches so that when she spun around, they lifted ever so slightly to reveal more of her calves. Her shoulders were bare beside blocky straps, and she wore several strings of pearls around her neck, clacking together as she set down a Marvin Brew in front of the stupid boy. Booker watched, amused, as the boy eyed her lustfully, still bemoaning his little girlfriend.
Dramatic little baby. Booker, in a surprising slip of kindness, raised his hand and called, "Hey, missy, could I have a Daniels over here?" Mama DeWitt hadn't been good about manners - in his years with his mother and father, there'd been more shouting, and cussing, and kissing, and fighting than anything in that timebomb of a house. He hadn't been surprised when his father walked out with some eighteen year old from up the street, nor when Mama DeWitt gave him the boot without a backwards glance. So naturally, 'please' and 'thank you' weren't his quickest words. Those were probably 'bitch' and 'shit,' among other things. Esmee Abigail Terrence had looked over at him, turned up the charm, and sauntered on over to the rugged thirty-three year old man, leaned over the counter in her pretty little dress, given him an irresistable pair of doe eyes, and played with his collar. "Oh, you'll get more than a Daniels, big boy. How about I split you a deal - you pay a little extra for this drink, and you don't have to pay nothing when I come home with you."
And what could Booker say to that, really? Tell me, if you found yourself getting wooed by a pretty little thing from behind the bar, with more charisma than a politician, and she offered you a free drink and a night in bed, would you say no? Booker couldn't, and so he found himself saying, "I think that's a fine deal, alright."
So they followed up on their agreement that night. And the next. And a few nights more, before Booker threw it all to hell and just asked her out on a date, and a fly-by courtship went through. He loved her like nothing he'd ever known. He'd loved her enough to momentarily stop gambling, to get an honest job, to really support them. The Pinks still called him up, and for that, he received more grief than he could genuinely deal with from his girlfriend. But you don't turn your back on the Pinks, and he'd explained that to Esmee. She'd pressed her lips together, nodded, and made him promise not to do much. "If you run off to pull a Wounded Knee, I will kick you damn straight in the balls, and then I'll smack you all the way to High Heaven, by the Lord." She'd sworn, and Booker had laughed, given her a kiss, and then they'd gone out to dinner.
They got married, and they were happy. Everything had been so bright around Esmee. She was a constant, an ever-present, eternally loving, witty, sarcastic, beautiful light. And then she announced the pregnancy. She'd grown distant when she'd found out - she'd started evading Booker in the apartment, and when he came back from work, she'd have a note. He'd go to sleep on the couch, and wake up to find the bed already half-made, and breakfast on the able, along with his lunch, and a love not from Esmee, but she was never there. And one day, Booker stayed up all night, standing in front of the door, coffee in hand, a shot of liquid courage in the other, and when the lock turned, he opened the door, and saw Esmee, looking stunned. "Booker- I- Wait- How-?" She had stuttered, her voice quavering as she staggered back a few steps.
"If that's how you say hello the first time you see me in four weeks, three hours, and twelve minutes, then get out." He'd replied harshly, feeling heartbroken, and he'd slammed the door in her face, jamming the lock, and sat in front of the door, his beer bottle held loosely in his right hand. "Booker- Booker!" Esmee had called, muffled by the door. She'd banged on the door, trying the handle again, and sighed in irritation. "Open the door, DeWitt! Come on, please? Booker! Booker Charles Roth DeWitt, open this door!" She called desperately, and it took all of Booker's self-restraint (and that was a considerable amount) to keep him from throwing open the door and sweeping his angel into his arms. He heard her slide down on the door, heaving a sigh, and for a few minutes, there was utter silence as he drank his beer, stared at the spot between his feet in front of him, concentrating on the dusty floorboards, listening to the quiet of the apartment building. Don't open the door, don't open the door, don't fucking open the door, DeWitt, he repeated to himself, when he heard the beginnings of a stifled whimper. Freezing, he listened closely as Esmee sniffled, small, meak sounds squeaking past her throat, choked sobs exploding when she couldn't stop them. It was an ugly sound, one that made Booker feel like the bastard he was.
But something in him stopped him from standing up, opening the door, and comforting his wife. Something made him sit there, numb, listening to Esmee cry, his heart cracked nearly completely in two, in a way that told him only Esmee could mend it. "I'm pregnant, Booker. We're going to have a baby." She murmured through the door, and Booker felt his heart stop. Now, he did throw open the door, if only to stare at his wife in shock. "What?" She didn't look at him. "What did you say, Esmee?" He asked quietly, taking hold of her chin and forcing her to stare him in the eyes and repeat what she'd just said.
And something about it must have irked her, because Esmee - his Esmee, not the meek, slippery one who ghosted around him, the one he'd seen the past four weeks, three hours, and thirty-seven minutes - looked up at him, her eyes fierce again, radiant as ever, and firmly stated, "I, Esmee Abigail DeWitt nee Terrence, am pregnant with your child, Booker Charles Roth DeWitt."
He'd kissed her that night, with more passion than he'd ever kissed her before, and it had been the most amazing, fantastic, superiorly magnificent moment of his life. And then, six months later, it had ended. Because in the cold of December, during a wintry storm, with no doctors around, Esmee had died giving birth to Annabelle Elizabeth DeWitt, a beautiful, healthy baby girl who looked so much like her mother that Booker had had to get his friend Monroe to look after her while he drank away his life, drowning in his misery, now the inconsolable boy that he'd rolled his eyes at the night he met Esmee. He turned into the gambler he'd been, he was fired from his job, he dated ten girls and was dropped by them all, at exactly the same moment, and the Pinkertons demanded more of him than they had in the first thirteen years of his admittance. Slate was constantly patting his back, consoling him in the harsh, unaccepting way a superior Pinkerton did. It had led to a disaster that he felt, rather than saw, and one that had ended, in the next December, the day his wife died and he wasn't strong enough to welcome his beautiful little girl into the world, when he woke up at his desk, woozy and still tired, in the middle of his mostly repossessed apartment, to the sounds of a baby girl crying. Good bye, DeWitt. I'll be watching over us. It was the resounding voice of Elizabeth - he knew it, all his infinite selves had been incorporated into his dreams. An endless torture, a spiral downwards...untill last night. He'd felt his future self go through the motions, severe the bonds. And Comstock wouldn't be interrupting - even if he did, this time, Booker knew thine enemy.
But on to more important matters - his baby girl. "Anna? Anna, is that you?" He called, even though he knew it was. He needed it to be her. Elizabeth had made sure it was her. Before he did anything, his hand grabbed a pencil. He turned a gambling card over, and quickly sketched her face. Elizabeth's, of course. And then he sketched his wife's, and he smiled. Perfect resemblance. No wonder he'd been so shattered - Anna would grow up to look exactly like her mother. To the last detail. It was a little known fact - in fact, only Monroe and his wife knew - that Booker could draw like a demon. If he'd been a few dollars richer, and a few people less dangerous, he might have pursued a career as an artist. But for now, he'd pursue fatherhood. He stood up quickly, pacing to Anna's little, bare-boned nursery, and opened it. "There's my beautiful little girl." He cooed, snuggling her. Holding her close, because it hurt to think how many times he'd let her go.
Not this time. And he knew where he would go instead. Because how better to trump fate, than to test it?