MARIE

You looked like a princess the night we met
With your hair piled up high
I will never forget
I'm drunk right now baby
But I've got to be
Or I never could tell you
What you meant to me

She never got tired of hearing it and he never got tired of singing it.

He'd written the song as part of his marriage proposal to her forty five years ago and it still held the exact same power for Marie that it did the first time she listened to the musical love letter he'd dedicated to her.

But the song wasn't just meant to be his own personal vow to love her forever, it was also a promise to himself to never drink again. Back then he hit the bottle harder than he hit himself when he saw his face staring back at him in the mirror. Until he met Marie, he never liked what he saw in himself and drank to try and escape the person he feared he would be stuck with forever, just like they say when the wind changes you get stuck with it, frozen in time.

The cliche of the self loathing artist was an insufferable and hoary trope to Ray's mind now, but back then he had a good many reasons to be as troubled as he was. An abusive father, an absent mother and never hearing the words 'I love you' uttered once throughout his traumatic childhood. Marie changed all that and though it sounded like she was talking in a foreign tongue at first he soon came to realise they were the three most precious words in the English language. And as she slowly taught him how to love, he slowly began to wean himself off the bottles of booze he'd been addicted to night after night as well as morning and afternoon.

In that transition from hating everything to loving her it wasn't always pretty, it never is when a beast turns into a prince, but when he wrote the song for her, he knew he was letting go of the past and embracing their future together with a clean slate.

The proposal itself was almost as touching as the song he'd written. Giving her the last beer bottle top from his last ever drink, he also gave her a silver ring he'd raised the money for with tips singing at the local bar where he'd first seen her.

She'd have been lying if she had said she didn't hesistate for a brief moment before saying yes. But the look in his eyes in that precious moment was so beautifully sincere, almost pure that she had no choice in the end but to accept his offer of marriage.

"Yes, my love. I will."

You're the song
That the trees sing when the wind blows
You're a flower, you're a river, you're a rainbow

Forty five years later, he was singing the same song at the same bar. The only difference now was he owned the place. At first, some had thought it was a terrible idea for an alcoholic such as he was to own a venue that sold liquor to fellow drunks, but he saw it as a way of conquering his demons and over time he converted the bar into a family restaurant where it became a staple of the local community for special occasions such as Valentine's, birthdays, and anniversaries as well as being a general hang out for all generations of dreamers, musicians especially.

And when asked, Ray would happily sing his song of love to his regulars as well as anyone from far and wide who'd made the pilgrimage to hear it.

For the song had become synonmous with the restaurant.

Which he'd also named Marie.