Melody
David knew how his sister would react if he ever told her that she reminded her of their mother. She would curl blackly lipsticked lips into a sneer, rolling her icy blue eyes in complete contempt before narrowing them into slits as she said something cold and cruel about him having an Oedipus complex, perhaps even asking him if she wanted to "analyze" himself by following her one day into her and Wendell's bedroom. She would never believe it or see the comparison as valid, and neither, David suspected, would their other siblings.
It wasn't that she resembled their mother physically. Their mother had been blonde and conventional in appearance, the typical mildly pretty mother figure in dress and style, always with a warm smile and gentle touch. Darlene was brunette even when she hadn't dyed her hair the dreary black of its present style, and though their mother's eyes had been blue as well, Darlene's were lighter in their hue and much more guarded, even hostile, when not mischievous or sly. Of course, their mother had never dressed in the slinky, all-black get-ups that Darlene came up with, and even the way they carried themselves was completely unalike.
It wasn't about appearance, or about anything that Darlene usually did in her daily life, out in the public, where anyone could see. Usually, David couldn't see it at all.
But it was only Darlene who would go to Lenny in the basement and sit beside his door, head leaned against the thick barrier as she sang soft lullabies, her voice high, sweet, and gentle in a manner that she never showed anyone else, even her twin. It had been Darlene who insisted that Lenny have toys in his room, teddy bears and picture books along with more "aggressive" toys like dump trucks and action figures, and it was Darlene who would sit outside the door and read Lenny tales of the three billy goats gruff and Little Red Riding Hood each night before they estimated Lenny would go to sleep. It was only Darlene who ever referred to Lenny as "baby."
Watching his sister sitting near Lenny's caged area of their current house, David saw how her face softened when she spoke to him, how she seemed younger and more relaxed in her posture and expression, and it was then that he could see in her small glimpses of their mother, that he held some small hope that maybe one day, there could be hope after all that she too would settle down.