Although she had been an adult for a year or two by this point, it was only at this point that young Ms. Madeline Ferry was truly an independent women. Despising the "mad" in her name, and also despising the whole of her surname, her first act as a free woman was to register a name change with the State. Letting wan meet wax, she changed as little as she could while changing everything that mattered, thus landing on Delia Waters.

An exception to a rigid norm, her crescent smile lit up the street as she left the halfway house.

Worn, sunbleached sundress, originally some kind of green and yellow; cheap black flats; neither accessories nor accouterments to her name, she drifted along with the breeze. Carried along as the west wind's cargo, she reveled in the free and easy feeling of emptiness.

"Freedom," she thought, "is the ability to do whatever you want, and the joy to let the world decide your path anyway."

"A coconut, drifting gently and aimlessly on the Pacific, where is it I will take root?"

It was at this point that, to her great (yet perhaps inevitable) misfortune, she encountered someone overjoyed to see her.

"Madeline," he greeted her. He was a charming young man, one would suppose. The arrogance of the accomplished suffused him. Perhaps in earlier days his dark eyes had held the reflections of many; opponents met, challenges bested. Alas, by the whittle of life's passing had a ruddy dullness taken his eyes over, and no reflections could be thus be discerned.

A nauseous lightning strike overcame her. In an instant, she fled backwards through thought and memory: shock, misery, anger, disdain, superiority, desolation... would she have been slapped it would have reckoned less from her, every feeling uncharacteristically revelealed on her paling and wretched face.

"Hello Cousin Zachary," she choked out over her gorge.

He walked over to her with firm, heavy steps. Much that could never be shown from his mannequin head was shown by the hurry and thud of his walk. His arms made clear an intention to hug Ms. Delia, though ultimately it was thwarted by reason.

"It was... difficult... it was difficult to see you today. Regardless of everything, I... you should know that... I am glad to see you are doing well."

A siren sounds in the distance.

Despite herself and despite the weight of years, of actions deliberately taken over the course of years, Ms. Delia finds herself overwhelmed. That same Pacific she dreamed of earlier, does it not also have volcanoes and monsoons?

She grasps him. Left arm under his right, right arm over his left, she pulls his down. A kiss by his ear, then a warning.

"Until he comes back, you're all we have. Please take care of yourself a little better."

He stiffens, a surging coursing throughout him with no clear and settling outcome, when she pulls him down again and says something too quiet for me to tell you about. He... relaxes, after a moment or so. He looks at her with a satisfied yet remiss vision.

With a greater degree of passionless-ness, he rummages around a dirtied yet shrivulous trenchcoat before passing her a pristine business card.

"I won't say 'Where there's life, there's hope'... but... maybe one day I'll be your misery, after all."

He says this, then he leaves. Filling a street by his presence, then leaving it so empty on departure... is it any wonder our poor Delia feels so 'strongly' about her family?