Song Lyrics: http://home.comcast.net/~mkforever/songs.htm
Prelude – Thank You by Tori Amos
Italy has a strange effect on people. It's something indescribable in the air that whispers more then history; there something more than a past in the patina of the buildings, something more than genius in the sculptures and something more than beauty in the oil paintings. To Josh it was escape from all of things that waited for him in America. To Josh, Italy was more than an interesting past; it was the threshold to his future.
Living life, he told himself, was what he planned to do. Gather ye rosebud while ye may before we become the decayed rose petals that lined the street leading Josh to the entrance of an opera house. If he knew what life awaited him inside, would he still have entered? The rose petals that lay strewn about the ground, lost and trampled but holding on to their beauty, seemed to make a river of blood that was pulling him in.
Roslyn was her name, but Josh first knew her as Madame Butterfly; eyes like black pearls, hair like black silk, she was all of the history, beauty, elegance and extravagance that Italy was. Josh, blinded by the love and lust that could not be contained in his 25 year old body, was determined not to leave Italy without her.
It was rash, and rashness was never a trait in the Lyman bloodline. But there was little his family could do; Roslyn was expecting a child and Josh was going to marry her. The shaking heads, and exasperated sighs were small pains for being able to make a life with Roslyn. Everything was planned; they would wait until the baby was born before getting married, Josh would finish Yale, go to law school and then join Debevoise & Plimpton with his father. Together they would raise their child with all of the hopeful intentions of expecting parents. Every night, Josh would lay a hand on Roslyn's stomach and smile, knowing that the life growing was half his and half the best thing that ever happened to him. He knew that his heart, already filled to the brim with love, could only expand exponentially to include this child that was about to become the second best thing in his life.
Eight months later and every day was made perfect for Josh by being able to see Roslyn, even more beautiful now that her face glowed with maternal lover and her womb was the soft round cradle for their child.
And then tragedy came and shoved Roslyn's car off the highway and into a concret wall, it came and smashed all of the windows, crushed the front of the car and launched her body on to the glass carpeted highway, ripping out all life from the women Josh loved. Tragedy carried her lifeless body away on a stretcher.
So what was it then that allowed a baby to be extracted, crying and alive from a body that had already found it's away out of this world? What was it that saved the protective home of their child from sure death?
Josh didn't care about the answer, and through the wrenching tears he saw a premature baby girl that contained Roslyn in her nose, olive skin, black hair but her eyes were mirror reflections of Josh's own amber brown ones. He couldn't distinguish from the overwhelming love and overwhelming agony that he felt looking at his daughter. His heart was ripping, and mending, the blood rushed through him like gold and ashes, making him fall to his knees with the tragedy and miracle that was this night. He named her Victoria, because he knew that life had been tonight's victor in this first battle with tragedy and he had a plan for her to ultimately win the war.
It was seven years before Josh could fully handle Tori on her own. There was something in her face, something in the way she looked at him that made the emptiness of his heart seem to expand and void his whole soul. They lived with Josh's parents until then; Josh did as much work as he could from where he stood, seemingly alone in his devastation. Tori, a quiet child, found her solace in her grandmother's piano or her grandfather's guitar and most nights Josh fell asleep at his desk listening to the echoing chords of Schubert from downstairs. Most nights Tori fell asleep wondering why daddy was always so sad and why she seemed to always feel the same way.
On the day when father and daughter moved to Washington D.C. Tori thought that she was leaving the only home she would ever know, and Josh, somewhere hidden in the place where he still keep his love for Roslyn, had a feeling that it would be true.
Prelude – Thank You by Tori Amos
Italy has a strange effect on people. It's something indescribable in the air that whispers more then history; there something more than a past in the patina of the buildings, something more than genius in the sculptures and something more than beauty in the oil paintings. To Josh it was escape from all of things that waited for him in America. To Josh, Italy was more than an interesting past; it was the threshold to his future.
Living life, he told himself, was what he planned to do. Gather ye rosebud while ye may before we become the decayed rose petals that lined the street leading Josh to the entrance of an opera house. If he knew what life awaited him inside, would he still have entered? The rose petals that lay strewn about the ground, lost and trampled but holding on to their beauty, seemed to make a river of blood that was pulling him in.
Roslyn was her name, but Josh first knew her as Madame Butterfly; eyes like black pearls, hair like black silk, she was all of the history, beauty, elegance and extravagance that Italy was. Josh, blinded by the love and lust that could not be contained in his 25 year old body, was determined not to leave Italy without her.
It was rash, and rashness was never a trait in the Lyman bloodline. But there was little his family could do; Roslyn was expecting a child and Josh was going to marry her. The shaking heads, and exasperated sighs were small pains for being able to make a life with Roslyn. Everything was planned; they would wait until the baby was born before getting married, Josh would finish Yale, go to law school and then join Debevoise & Plimpton with his father. Together they would raise their child with all of the hopeful intentions of expecting parents. Every night, Josh would lay a hand on Roslyn's stomach and smile, knowing that the life growing was half his and half the best thing that ever happened to him. He knew that his heart, already filled to the brim with love, could only expand exponentially to include this child that was about to become the second best thing in his life.
Eight months later and every day was made perfect for Josh by being able to see Roslyn, even more beautiful now that her face glowed with maternal lover and her womb was the soft round cradle for their child.
And then tragedy came and shoved Roslyn's car off the highway and into a concret wall, it came and smashed all of the windows, crushed the front of the car and launched her body on to the glass carpeted highway, ripping out all life from the women Josh loved. Tragedy carried her lifeless body away on a stretcher.
So what was it then that allowed a baby to be extracted, crying and alive from a body that had already found it's away out of this world? What was it that saved the protective home of their child from sure death?
Josh didn't care about the answer, and through the wrenching tears he saw a premature baby girl that contained Roslyn in her nose, olive skin, black hair but her eyes were mirror reflections of Josh's own amber brown ones. He couldn't distinguish from the overwhelming love and overwhelming agony that he felt looking at his daughter. His heart was ripping, and mending, the blood rushed through him like gold and ashes, making him fall to his knees with the tragedy and miracle that was this night. He named her Victoria, because he knew that life had been tonight's victor in this first battle with tragedy and he had a plan for her to ultimately win the war.
It was seven years before Josh could fully handle Tori on her own. There was something in her face, something in the way she looked at him that made the emptiness of his heart seem to expand and void his whole soul. They lived with Josh's parents until then; Josh did as much work as he could from where he stood, seemingly alone in his devastation. Tori, a quiet child, found her solace in her grandmother's piano or her grandfather's guitar and most nights Josh fell asleep at his desk listening to the echoing chords of Schubert from downstairs. Most nights Tori fell asleep wondering why daddy was always so sad and why she seemed to always feel the same way.
On the day when father and daughter moved to Washington D.C. Tori thought that she was leaving the only home she would ever know, and Josh, somewhere hidden in the place where he still keep his love for Roslyn, had a feeling that it would be true.