Read and review
"Have you got everything, baby girl?" Shelby Corcoran checked, as her five year old daughter strapped her oversized backpack to her tiny figure. Rachel nodded excitedly, her big brown eyes shining.
"I have, Mummy". She stood on her tip toes, leaning up to kiss her mother's cheek. "Bye Mummy. Bye Daddy, bye Dad!"
Hiram and Leroy Berry smiled at their daughter, hugging her and peppering her with kisses, before the brunette skipped towards her classroom, without so much as a look over her shoulder.
Shelby couldn't help the pang in her chest, the tears that unwillingly welled up in her eyes. Her baby girl was five, stepping into school for the first time. While she knew it was inevitable, she wanted to hold onto her daughter forever (even though the girl's fathers, whom she lived with every other week, had suggested home schooling her. Shelby, while wanting to hold onto Rachel's innocence, had shot the idea down).
That weekend, after the little girl's first week of school, they sat around the breakfast table sleepily, still wearing pyjamas. Rachel, while chewing on her peanut butter smothered toast, chatted about the adventures the pair were going to have, while Shelby listened intently, sipping her coffee.
"I'll be back, okay?" the five year old said, before scampering towards the stairs.
Even though she was still in the same house, Shelby couldn't help the melancholy feeling that settled in her stomach. Before she knew it, Rachel would be all grown up and living her dreams on the Broadway stage, their Saturday morning adventures a distant, forgotten memory.
She had so many dreams, so many adventures. All that she wanted to experience with Shelby. While some of those adventures they would have, a lot they wouldn't, leaving Rachel with unfulfilled dreams.
Shelby wished that Rachel would stay five years old forever, to stay her little girl, snuggled under a blanket watching old musicals. The childhood innocence that she loved so very much, that she never wanted to let go of.
But, she had blinked, and suddenly, Rachel was all grown up and slipping away a little more every day.
"Do I look pretty, Mummy?" Rachel wanted to know, turning to face her mother.
Shelby blinked back tears, at the sight of Rachel in a white wedding dress. Twenty three years old, a Broadway star, and still a little girl in her parents' eyes.
"You look beautiful", Shelby whispered.
That smile on her daughter's face was the same one she had been wearing since she was a baby, as she wrapped her arms around her mother. And, just like that, it was like she was five years old again.
Shelby had felt her slipping away, little by little, as the time passed, wishing as hard as she could that she could freeze the picture that was her little girl's life. But she knew that Rachel Barbra Berry would never totally slip away from her.
She wouldn't let her.