The bartender could see him coming from across the street, and had his double whiskey on the rocks ready for him by the time he sat down. He was old, and moving pretty slow these days, but he was still self sufficient enough to make it to the bar on his own. He would sit in the same corner of the bar at the same time every day. He would drink two double whiskeys on the rocks while he read from a book with a faded photo to mark his spot.

He would read through the first drink, then put the book down and chat with the bartender through the second. If the conversation was interesting enough, he would have a third, but never a fourth. Once he was done, he would drop too much cash underneath his empty glass and wave at the bartender with a simple “See ya tomorrow”.

The photo in his book was always the same. Faded and sun bleached, two young kids arm in arm and smiling. He handled the photo with the habitual yet burdened reverence of a cross borne for decades. He didn’t own a phone, there was no one left to call him anymore.

The books he read were always fiction. Non-fiction books were just as fictitious, he argued, at least fiction books were honest about it. Plus, fiction books wrapped up their stories into nice bows, with no loose ends or nagging open issues. Non-fiction just made him mad, the world was always the same story over and over again. Just… loss and sorrow repeated.

His doctor told him he needed to stop drinking. He just smiled and told the doctor that he was more likely to die with a drink in his hand. On that, both he and the doctor agreed. Truth is, he didn’t care, and didn’t even really know why he went to the doctor anymore. Just someone to talk to, he supposed.

One Wednesday afternoon, his book was down on the bar and he was chatting with the bartender, when the door opened behind him and he heard the sound of heals clicking on the floor coming up. “Hi, Bobby,” she said behind him.

His eyes closed for a minute as he relived decades of memories from a lifetime ago, then turned around. She was decades his younger but no longer young. She wore a red dress, a sun hat and large sunglasses with lipstick that matched the dress. She looked good, but none of that hid the grey hairs streaking through her blonde mane, or the wrinkles around her mouth from too many years smiling. “Hey, darlin’,” he said with the warm, sad reservation of someone glad to see you at a funeral, “been a while.”

“A long while,” she smiled and hugged him. The bartender gave her a nod and she pointed at a bottle of wine behind him. He dropped the glass and politely found something to clean on the other side of the bar.

“What brings you to my corner?” he asked, scared of the answer.

“Ben,” she said, knowing his fear, not wanting to hurt him but having no choice in the matter. His eyes closed and breath shuttered for a moment, “I found him,” she finished.

For the first time in 28 years, he dropped his glass of whiskey.