Cordelia's mother Harmony Silverglade grew up in a small town in Massachusetts, and went to college at Chicago University with Daniel. They went out for less than a month, slept together once, and after breaking up never spoke more than a few words to each other, just "hi" as they passed in the halls. A few weeks after the breakup, she dropped out of school, and none of Daniel's acquaintances knew why, not that he pursued the matter.

Life went on:

Daniel met Sarah Gardner

Harmony went home, told her parents she was pregnant, and said she wanted to raise the child as a single mother. When they asked who the father was, she refused to tell, insisting that the child was her responsibility, and that the father of her child did not know of its existence and had no need of that knowledge. They pressed her, and finally got a name, but she refused to let them contact the man, withholding phone number, address, or anything else which might help them locate him.

When her daughter was born, Harmony wanted to leave a blank in the place of the father's name on the birth certificate, but her parent's wouldn't allow it and told the doctors what name to put down.

Once home from the hospital and reassured of their daughter and granddaughter's health, Mr. and Mrs. Silverglade conceded to their daughter's wishes, and the name of the child's father was never spoken again.

Cordelia grew, as children do, and began asking questions. Her mother told her, patiently, and repeatedly, that there was no "daddy" and never had been. After awhile, Cordelia stopped asking.

She lived with her mother in a small house, which always needed repairs. They lived near her grandparents, who were often over, babysitting and taking care of her to give her mom a break every now and then.

So, fatherless though she was, Cordelia had a happy childhood, full, of course, with the ups and downs that come with growing up. When she was 8 or 9 she went through a phase of looking at all the grown-up men around her and trying to imagine which one was her dad, or most like her dad. In Junior High she wondered why her mom hadn't remarried, or why she didn't date like the other kids' moms did who weren't married. But the answer was the same as it had been when she was younger. "You don't need a father, I don't need a man to make me complete! We're doing fine on our own." And Cordelia had to admit, she was just as normal as her friends, whether they had a mom and dad and siblings, or two pairs of parents after a divorce or, in the case of her friend Tyler, no parents at all, just grandparents and an unusual uncle. (Later it was discovered that the uncle was actually Tyler's father, who had a drug problem and wasn't allowed custody.)

Delia entered high school and everything changed. Not having a father suddenly seemed much less important. Besides new pressures from classmates and peers, and in addition to the changes her own body was going through, Cordelia also had to deal with something no child should ever have to face.
At 15 years old, just as she began to get used to the idea of being a sophomore in high school, Cordelia's mother died during heart surgery. For years they had known about her mom's bad heart, it was a congenital defect, and Cordelia had been tested for it with negative results. In the fall, Harmony had started noticing her heart was acting up, and went to see a doctor who told her that she needed surgery. On November 19th, Harmony Silverglade died on the table despite the medical staff's best efforts.

Cordelia went to live with her grandparents, and struggled on. She got plenty of sympathy from her friends and classmates, even the teachers, so her grades didn't suffer too badly. For a while she turned to guys for comfort, and went through a period of many short lived "romances." She missed her house, and she really missed her mom, but living with her grandparents, who really had helped raise her, was not too bad, and in a few years she managed to work through her grief and start thinking of the future. She graduated from high school and was looking for a job when her grandfather told her she had to leave, that she was on her own.
He insisted that if they'd had any other options, they would take them, but there were no options at all. Only one truth: her grandmother had early onset senile dementia, and had to be placed in a nursing home. Cordelia had noticed the changes, but when the first signs appeared, she had been too involved with her own grief in dealing with the loss of the only parent she'd ever known to notice. With the news, her grandfather also told her she'd have to find somewhere else to live, since in order to get her grandmother the proper care at a reputable nursing home, they would have to sell the house. Cordelia, shocked by the first bombshell, numbly accepted that if she had thought her world changed by the death of her mother, it was now to be turned on its head.

The next few weeks passed in a surreal blur to Cordelia. She made arrangements to stay with a friend over the summer, and helped her grandfather pack things away for storage and move things to the small apartment at the Happy Acres Assisted Living Care Center, where her grandparents would likely spend the rest of their days.

She job hunted to the best of her abilities, but in a small town they were hard to come by if you wanted anything more than a part time, minimum wage job that lasted longer than a month. After many applications, several interviews, and a brief stint as a secretary's assistant (now there was an interesting experience, and one that taught Cordelia to never, ever, ever, go commando at work especially if you worked at a desk….), Delia found herself unemployed and once again about to be homeless. It was nearing the end of August and the friend she had been living with was getting ready to leave for college. Delia felt bad enough for encroaching on their hospitality for nearly 3 months without paying rent, and now with her friend leaving she knew she couldn't continue on this way. She broached the subject first with her hosts, and though she expected it, it still hurt to see the brief flash of relief cross their faces as she announced she would be leaving after Sierra went to college. When they asked her where she planned to stay, and if she had a job lined up yet, Delia replied with evasive non-answers and changed the subject. Truth be told, she herself had no idea, and in between odd jobs and job interviews, much of her time was spent puzzling over that very problem. Perhaps it was this constant worry that started the chain of events which would ultimately cause one more world stopping transformation to rock Cordelia's shaken up life.

Cordelia got into her car and in one fluid motion, turned the key in the ignition, and shut the door. I can't believe they don't have any positions open! At McDonald's, of all places, she couldn't get a job. This sucks! She thought, as she pulled out into traffic. It's the end of the August, I'm 18, practically 18½, I should be having the time of my life! Not worrying about where I'm going to be living next week! Or how- She had a few savings from the odd jobs she'd been doing, and she knew her grandparent's would chip in if they could, but with the high cost of the nursing home and medical bills too, she knew that wouldn't be much. As for her friends, well, they would help if they could, she was sure of that, so she made sure she didn't let on to just how desperate her situation was. Leia and Mel were gong to the community college just outside the city limits, but they decided to live on campus, and it didn't sit well with the morals Delia'd had drilled into her from childhood to stay with their families and not pay rent. You just can't stand to take charity from anyone, she said to herself. All that talk of being independent…

As if cued by the concept of relying on no one but one's self, a car slammed square into the passenger side of Cordelia's vehicle. In her distracted state, Cordelia had neglected to fasten her seatbelt, and Finagle's Law of Perversity which seemed to be everywhere in her life had dictated that on this trip, the only time she wasn't wearing her seatbelt, she would get into the first, and most serious car accident she had had in nearly two years of driving experience.

It was a t-bone collision at a three-way intersection. Nearly a textbook case, the other driver had been speeding, and Cordelia had anticipated the green light in her inattentive and irritated state, and had started forward before the light actually turned. When a car who's trying to make a yellow light, and a car who's impatient for a green one meet, it's rarely, if ever, a good thing, or even a thing which will end well after much initial badness. In this case, witnesses say they expected to find one survivor at maximum, and that one in bad shape. The Emergency Response personnel were thus presently surprised to find both drivers alive, though Cordelia, had she been conscious, would have been less please by it, seeing as being dead surely would have hurt less than having a bruised collarbone, broken arm, and bruised ribs, not to mention the concussion, in addition to many small cuts.

When she woke up in the hospital many hours later, her greatest concern, after the initial nausea and discomfort had passed, was, once again, money. How on earth am I ever going to pay for these medical bills!