It came to an end when Sister Bernadette witnessed the time Kristen Danvers threw Delia’s headscarf into the latrine. Sister Bernadette almost never got mad, but that day she battled angry tears as she excoriated Kristen and the other girls. The girls immediately expressed shame and apologized to Delia. They even agreed to befriend her, and for a while it seemed to work. They let her join them at mealtimes and quit calling her names.
One day they lured her up to the roof of the orphanage. “Have you never been up there?” Kristen asked. “It’s the best place in the whole building! You can see all the way to the East River. You can even see steamships coming into port.”
Delia followed the three girls up the dim stairwell leading to the roof. Their footsteps clattered on the concrete steps, and Delia covered her nose against the dank smell in the echoey stairwell. Her sense of unease vanished the moment she stepped onto the wondrous rooftop.
It was filled with sunlight, and a refreshing breeze blew steadily. She took in the impressive view around her. “You really can see all the way to the river,” she marveled. She could even smell the salt air drifting in from the bay. And thesky! Much of Manhattan was cast in perpetual shadow by the city’s towering buildings, and from the alleyways it was impossible to see more than a sliver of sky. Up here, she had to crane her neck to take in the immensity of the blue expanse above. Wispy clouds stretched as though painted by an unseen artist onto a never-ending canvas. It was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen. “I love this!” she whispered.
“Good,” Kristen said. “You can stay here and enjoy it.” Thegirls giggled as they ran for the stairwell door. They raced through and slammed it behind them.
As much as Delia loved the rooftop, she didn’t want to be left alone up here. She hurried to the door and twisted the knob. It was locked. She wiggled the knob again and was greeted by gales of laughter from the other side of the door.
“Open the door!” she yelled, pounding on the door. “Please!”
The girls’ laughter grew distant as they descended the stairs. They had abandoned her on the rooftop with no way to get back inside the building.
How stupid she had been to trust them. She couldn’t go to Sister Bernadette about this either, for she didn’t want to be known as a tattletale. Now that she was alone, it suddenly felt scary being on the rooftop. It was almost lunchtime, and she had to go to the bathroom.
If she wet herself, there’d be no end to the teasing. Her hair was now two inches long, so people didn’t tease her about being bald anymore. But if she wet herself, nobody would ever let her forget it. Her legs began trembling, making it difficult to stand.
Delia turned and slid down with her back against the door. She sat on the gravel and looked up at the sky. “Oh, Papa, why did you die and leave me in this awful place?”
Shame immediately flooded her. Papa had tried his hardest not to die. It wasn’t his fault. It was the stupid war that killed him, and she should be ashamed for even thinking such things.
“I didn’t mean it,” she whispered into her clenched hands, even though she prayed he couldn’t hear or see her. He would be so upset to see what had become of her.
It became hot as the sun rose higher. The smell of warm tar rose from the rooftop beneath her, but she was too afraid to stand. The low brick wall would probably stop her from falling off the building, but she was shaking so terribly that she didn’t trust herself on her feet. How much more could she take?
A rhythmic clang sounded from the far side of the roof. Oneclang after another, and then a head popped up on the other side of the roof. It was Finn Delaney. He hauled himself up and over the side of the roof. How stupid she had been not to realize there was a fire escape.
Finn was one of the older boys, good-looking and popular. They never spoke a single word to each other, but he looked at her strangely as he scrambled onto the roof, carrying a kite slung over his shoulder.
“Hey, Delia,” he said in surprise. “What are you doing up here?”
It was surprising a boy as well-liked as Finn Delaney even knew her name. “I got locked out,” she admitted as she pushed herself to her feet. “I came up here with Kristen Jones and some of the other girls, but I think they forgot me. I got locked out.”
Finn didn’t fall for her lie and seemed genuinely angry. “I thought Sister Bernadette put an end to all that.”
“I thought so too.” Her lower lip began to wobble. To start crying in front of the most popular boy at St. Michael’s would be the ultimate mortification.
“You can get down on the fire escape,” he said. “It opens up on the fourth floor. Or you can stay up here and watch me fly my kite.” He held it out for her to see.
It was a basic kite of white fabric stretched over a diamond frame and tied to a string. She didn’t have any interest in kites, but she didn’t want to venture down the fire escape alone.
“Can I watch?” she said, and he grinned.
It took about five seconds for the kite to catch the wind, and they both stared in admiration as it lifted overhead. The kite seemed as though alive as it soared above the gritty Lower East Side neighborhood.
It was at that exact moment when Delia felt her life turn, opening a page to a new chapter. She wanted to laugh and cry at the same time, but mostly she was just happy. The kite was beautiful! The way Finn smiled as he watched it made her smile too.
“Sometimes I feel like the earth is holding me down,” Finn said,his eyes fastened on the sky. “When I’m flying a kite, I imagine I’m up there with it among the clouds, soaring over buildings, rivers, and treetops. It’s the best way in the world to escape.”
Why would someone like Finn Delaney need to escape? He was popular and smart, although appearances could be deceiving. She’d heard that Finn’s mother had been killed in a fire when he was only twelve. Now he was fifteen and had a part-time job at a fish cannery, which was on top of going to school. It was one of the reasons he always looked worn out. Yet everyone respected him because he was already starting to earn money and make his own way in the world.
Her friendship with Finn grew quickly as she routinely met him on the roof to watch him fly his kite. On her fourteenth birthday, Finn gave her a kite he had made with his own two hands. It was the best gift she’d ever been given, and now the two of them could fly together.
It was in her fourteenth year that Delia became a genuinely happy person. She still lived in the grim world of the orphanage, but everything got better. Schoolwork was more interesting because flying kites had sparked her curiosity. Science class became an opportunity to learn about wind and gravity and velocity. Sewing lessons gave her the chance to experiment with kite design. She and Finn went to the public library to look at books that had drawings of dragon kites, box kites, and delta kites.
And somewhere along the way, they fell in love. They shared their first kiss one summer evening on the top of the building as the setting sun lit the clouds in a fiery golden glow. At first it was hard to believe someone as outgoing as Finn would choose a loner like Delia, but as the months rolled by, there could be no doubt. They told each othereverything. He confided his ongoing guilt over his mother’s death and his dream of someday opening a kite shop.
