Delilah Simms’s harassment at school had started with just the five Imitators. That number quickly grew as her unpopularity spread like a cancer. Taking the bus home had become a very traumatizing experience. She takes the city bus, having graduated from the yellow cheese bus after junior high. She used to wait at the bus stop feeling like a gazelle on a wide-open plain, surrounded by ravenous lions. One day, after almost getting into a physical confrontation, she decided to switch her bus route. Because her new route is so far from where she lives, she has to cut through a large park, cross a busy highway on an overpass, and walk five more blocks to get home. Although her new route is a pain to travel, Delilah thinks it’s better than the alternative. But she knows the balmy October weather will soon turn, and she dreads the cold winter months ahead.
Today she can feel a chill in the air. As she walks, she crosses her arms over her chest, shielding her body against the cool air. She hears children playing in the distance. A small part of her envies them. They sound so happy, carefree, optimistic—Delilah is devoid of these emotions.
Delilah lives in Queens, New York, on a moderately quiet street. At night when it’s peaceful, she can hear the distant sound of the train. Since it’s only a twenty-five-minute train ride into Manhattan, she sometimes travels there on weekends, content just to walk around Times Square or window-shop on Fifth Avenue.
Her house is light blue with black shutters. Her parents bought it when she was just six months old. Sometimes she imagines what her parents were like when they first bought the house—a young couple optimistic about their future, anxious to spend their lives together creating happy memories. Unfortunately she knows life doesn’t always turn out as planned.
As she turns the key to her front door, she hears her mother calling from the kitchen, “D, is that you?” Her mother has called her “D” for as long as she can remember.
“Yes, Mom, it’s me.” The house is small, and Delilah remembers what her mother once told her about when she and Delilah’s father, Joe, first saw the real estate agent’s ad for the house. The ad described the house as being “cozy,” which her mother said was code for tiny. A long entry hall extends from the front door. To the right is the kitchen, and in the kitchen there is a small door that leads to the basement. The basement was supposed to be Joe’s man cave, but little by little, her mother, Susan, took it over. In retrospect, Delilah wishes she hadn’t done that; maybe things would have turned out differently. Next to the kitchen is the all-purpose living-office-dining room. In the center of the room there is a large round walnut dining table that used to belong to Delilah’s grandmother. Susan took the table after her mother died, saying that she had too many fond memories eating her mother’s cooking on that table to ever part with it.
Past the living room, there are three bedrooms. The smallest bedroom used to belong to Delilah’s little sister, Darcy. After the accident, Susan put a lock on the door and expected everyone to pretend as though it was no longer there. Delilah and Joe tried to convince Susan to move, but she always had an excuse. Six months ago Joe got tired of asking her to move and packed his own bags. He rents a studio apartment about five miles away. Delilah visits him a couple times a week, but she tries not to stay too long because it depresses her. Delilah doesn’t think her mother will ever give in and sell the house. She knows Susan is convinced that Darcy’s spirit is still there.
“How was school today, D?”
“It was OK,” Delilah says, tossing her book bag on the floor and kicking off her shoes. Delilah has not told Susan the full extent of the trouble she’s been having at school; Susan isn’t even aware that she’s now taking a different bus route home. It would only make her mother nervous if she knew that Delilah had been walking through the park alone. A few years earlier it was all over the local papers that a young woman had been raped while jogging in the same park.
“What do you think about ordering a pizza for dinner tonight?” Delilah’s mother asks, trying to force a smile.
Even though she’s not in the mood for pizza, Delilah smiles back and says, “Sounds good.” She tries not to say anything that might upset her mother, who has seemed even more stressed since Joe left. Delilah can see the toll it’s taking on her mother whenever she looks in her eyes. She once heard someone say that the eyes are the windows to a person’s soul. Her mother’s eyes used to sparkle, but now they look dull and lifeless. Susan used to be an attractive woman, always getting compliments on her figure, but lately she has become too thin. Delilah has tried encouraging her to eat more—she even tried to take up baking but almost burned the house down one day while attempting to make brownies.
Delilah looks over at her mother standing at the kitchen counter sorting through the mail. Her hands look so thin and bony as they compulsively shuffle through the envelopes. Delilah thinks to herself that she should surprise her mother tonight by buying something sweet for dessert. She decides to go to the coffee shop down the street because they have the most delicious éclairs that her mother used to rave about.
“Mom, I have to run down to the store for something. I’ll be back in a little bit.” Delilah catches another glimpse of her mother’s gaunt frame as she walks toward the front door. She is unaware that her life is about to change forever.