Watch Night

Delmah snaps him out of his gloom. After a whirlwind romance they marry only when Asa reluctantly agrees to forego having “rug rats.”

Five years later they have four year old Eric, non-verbal and autistic. Victimized once too many by Eric’s bullheaded routines, Asa catches her savagely pounding on Eric, whom she calls their “demon child.”

While supposedly en route to her grandfather’s funeral in Grand Cayman, Delmah goes missing. Officer Daria, who resembles a mysterious woman Asa’s dreamed about, heads the search for Delmah. Asa discovers empty medicine bottles for manic and bi-polar depression that Delmah had stashed away.

He finds that her grandfather, Balaam, is quite alive and has been looking for her. Balaam reveals that she was pregnant when she left the island.

Forced to become Eric’s caregiver, Asa loses his job and is evicted from their apartment. Officer Daria takes them to a homeless shelter inside a crumbling church.

One evening, Eric finds a sickly Delmah putting flowers on her daughter’s grave. She’s rushed to the hospital. Asa learns she’d previously attempted suicide. Her daughter died while she battled postpartum depression. She stopped taking meds and went to a dark place.

Delmah tears into Balaam and sends him away then finds he’s been trying to give her an inheritance of $500,000 from her banker father. Remorseful, Delmah makes up with Balaam.

The story ends at the church, during watch night service after she’s used her inheritance to refurbish the church, the shelter and her daughter’s grave site.

Her work done, Officer Daria makes a brief church visit then vanishes into the night.