A/N: I'm not Jewish and the little I know about the culture I've learned from internet research, so please, if I get something wrong, let me know. I just wanted to do a little cute fic in the holiday spirit, and I thought it would be nice to write about the Corcoran family.
Also, this wasn't revised by my beta, so apologies for any mistakes.
~*2011*~
It wasn't that Shelby didn't want to be there. She was honestly grateful to be home. To even have a home, where despite everything, she still felt safe; which had been the reason for her to get on a plane to New Hampshire upon leaving Ohio behind. But being back with her parents was difficult.
After the Trouble Tones had lost Sectionals, she hadn't known what to do with her life. She didn't want to go back to New York City, feeling there was nothing for her there anymore, but the mere thought of remaining in the same district as Puck and Quinn made her clam up. So she had declined Al Motta's generous offer to keep her as a private vocal teacher to Sugar, who despite her glaring lack of singing ability had grown on her, and packed up.
Rachel had shown up a couple days before her flight and told her that Quinn was getting psychological help and wouldn't threaten her anymore, but her decision had been made by then. She had already phoned her parents to let them know she would be spending Thanksgiving with them for the first time in maybe a decade, and they had been so glad to hear from her she would never backtrack.
She had loved the opportunity to have dinner with her kid, and it had gone really well, following the pattern of their slow bonding, but anything else that followed would have to be through e-mails or phone, because staying in Lima really didn't feel right for her. Rachel had thankfully understood, and had actually been excited when Shelby had promised to fly into New York to help the girl get acquainted with the city.
However, going back to her hometown wasn't exactly heaven either. Shelby had always felt like the ugly duckling in the family. She had grown up in a city that barely had 12.000 people, and she was loud and had big dreams of making it in show biz. Her father and mother were both extremely respected professors at Dartmouth. Her older brother, Gabe, had gone to Pre-Med and Medical School at Dartmouth, married a girl he met there, and raised his one son at Hanover too. Her younger brother, Frederick had attended the college as well and majored in something Shelby didn't even recall; he was a professional skier, so it wasn't like he had cared about academics, but he had met their parents expectations and gotten a formal education. Their house was decorated with so much green it felt like the WWF headquarters.
But deflecting her family's Dartmouth tradition wasn't the only decision that made her the odd one out. Her parents really weren't bad parents. Her mother had been a huge Maria Callas fan, so she had been actually over the moon with Shelby's insistence to be classically trained in singing, and there had been deep frowns when she had churned at the idea of an Ivy League education, but her parents were sort of proud when she had been accepted at the prestigious Curtis Institute.
Her family was wicked smart, but super normal and put together, and everybody was close. She had always, for some reason, felt like she didn't fit in quite well. She couldn't wait to leave, to have adventures, to conquer the stages and have fame. She knew the thought of notoriety alone horrified her parents, unless there was a Nobel of Physics involved, and they had resented her a little for being so adamant on having lots and lots of space.
Gabe probably still called them every night to say goodnight, and as much as a rebel as Freddie liked to pretend he was, Shelby knew he Skyped with them way too often, no matter where he was and what he was doing. Her biggest sin had always been feeling suffocated by that type of attention. She had never wanted to cut them off, she just needed privacy.
They were nice and they meant well, but her mother specially watched her like a hawk, prodded, observed and analyzed everything to a degree that a simple scolding felt like a hot knife piercing through her core. It didn't help that Eleanor Corcoran was one of the leading researchers in Psychoanalysis in the country, with a post-doctoral from Cambridge. At some point, both of her brothers had learned to take those psycho-babbling sermons with a grain of salt or two. But Shelby had never reveled on the humor of it. She had been always far too insecure. She had always strived to be perfect, and had always perceived her brothers to effortless be so; that made her mother's constant critical eye tear her to pieces.
She had no idea why her whole family had learned how to cope with it, ignore it when it got too much and even make fun of it, and all she managed to do was squirm and shut down. In the end, she had curled within herself. If she couldn't be faultless, she could at least pretend to be. It had taken her decades to realize that bottling up everything she deemed a weakness was the worst mistake of her life. It had damaged her as a functional human being, as a performer, and it probably wouldn't have done her any favors as a mother if ten years before she hadn't decided to start closing these wounds.
It was surely a very slow process, but at least she was speaking to her family again. At least she was starting to open up, and they were trying too. A couple of years ago, when she had just adopted Beth, her mother had gone on such a rant about the appropriate time to reveal the truth about the adoption to her then ten days old child, the best ways to coddle her through abandonment issues and what not, that Shelby had ended up having a mild anxiety attack. That had been the first time she had been able to admit to her mother that some of her inputs hurt her and her mom had been honestly shocked. They had shared a very frank conversation after that and Eleanor had promised to be more empathetic, but Shelby had needed to promise to share some of her insecurities and fears too.
And it was never easy to stop and tell her mother when she was making her seriously upset, especially because there was still so much her family didn't know about her yet, but it was a muscle Shelby had been forcing herself to flex. Especially since now she was basically living with her parents again. She hadn't planned on it happening, but a few days after Thanksgiving, her sister-in-law Cecilia, who taught Math at the local high-school, had mentioned they needed someone to direct the Christmas Musical.
Shelby hadn't been into the idea at all, but of course her parents had been adamant she looked into the opportunity, because neither of them was looking forward to her leaving and taking Beth away from them. She had to admit, her parents might have been tough as a mom and a dad, but as grandparents they were the most pathetic creatures. Gone were the intellectual types that made them all cringe with their seriousness and high expectations; around Beth they drooled and cooed and spoiled her rotten. It was incredibly satisfying to see her eighteen month-old daughter wrap her intimidating parents around her little fingers.
So, in the end, she had talked to the High-School Principal and gotten herself easily hired. She had moved into her parents' guest house. They had all fallen into a surprisingly effortless little routine. Shelby cooked breakfast every morning while her parents went through their lessons and they ate it together; Eleanor picked Beth up at lunch because she assured Shelby it was easy to do her office hours with the little girl playing quietly in the playpen Eleanor had purchased particularly for her workplace. Shelby would then leave for the school, work a couple of hours on preparations and then rehearse the kids until around seven. Dinner was usually ready and they'd eat as a family again, unless it was Friday night, in which case they went to Gabe's.
Her father tried to talk her into coaching a Choir in Dartmouth at least once a week, and Sundays usually meant they did something athletic so that once Freddie was back and the skiing season started everybody would be fit for their customary weekend trips to the Dartmouth Skiway. That should be soon, because now, on their first day of Hanukkah, her brother was finally flying his ass back from Whistler and they should have a good snow fall on the next few days.
"Shelby Marie Corcoran!"
Shelby flinched when she heard her mother scream across the backyard. She had been curled up on her sofa going through some notes for the musical. She knew her mother was pissed because Freddie had decided to fly out of Canada at the last possible minute and she was on edge about whether or not he would get there in time to light up the candle, so everybody was getting their ass whipped.
Shelby sat down as her mother crossed the threshold with a scowl etched on her face and a gross smelling book in her hands. She winced and searched the glass panes for her father standing there, anywhere. He was supposed to be covering for her! Shelby had gotten distracted by one fraction of a minute that morning and Beth had vomited all of her orange juice all over her mother's first edition of Freud's Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality. She knew she was screwed; she just wasn't used to Beth being able to run into their offices and destroy expensive stuff in a nanosecond. The baby had started to walk one week ago, and she was already running! Also, it wasn't fair that they insisted on not baby-proofing the place.
Shelby tried to convey her best puppy eyes, but that didn't stop Eleanor from spitting a very intricate speech about Shelby's narcissistic tendencies a thousand words per minute. She had to really restrain herself not to roll her eyes. That was one sermon that made her mostly annoyed, rather than distressed. Even she had accepted a long time that they were all ego maniacs, yada, yada, yada.
"Mom," she groaned, but at the very same time Beth started whimpering in her crib and that shut Eleanor up right away. Shelby loved that kid's timing so much.
"Now you can talk to the perpetrator herself," she commented playfully but the glare she received made her deflate, even as Eleanor took Beth from her crib and started to mumble something about learning to respect other's possessions. Beth seemed little interested in that talk and just leaned her head against her nana's shoulder and quietly sucked on her thumb.
"Well, at least she inherited the calm and tameness from her biological parents. You were never easy."
Okay, now that was hurtful. Shelby found herself gaping and she had a feeling she had probably gone a little pale, if the sickening twist on her stomach was any indication. Her voice also sounded pretty small when she had chastised Eleanor with a simple "Mother", and that had been enough for her mom to realize she had crossed the line again.
"Oh, sweetie, I didn't mean it like that. We always loved you wholly, even when you were out to terrorize us or the neighbors, and we would love Beth no matter what too."
Shelby sighed and let it go, because that was the least of what irked her, but then that wasn't her mother's fault. Having a conversation about how sensitive she was about any comparison between Beth and her biological parents meant opening a can of worms and she was avoiding it. Eleanor, fierce observant that she was, seemed to have noticed that she just withdrew into herself as usual and sat next to her.
"Want to tell me what's really bothering you?"
Shelby pursed her lips and wriggled her hands nervously. She did want to talk about it, but she wasn't quite ready to let it all out yet. Chatting about her feelings was so hard, particularly in a family where everybody else seemed to be pretty nonchalant about it. Maybe she just wasn't prepared for her mother to give her a very clinical assessment of the whole thing. She simply wasn't eager to reach out to reason; she was aware that being highly emotional about it wasn't helpful, but she didn't want anybody telling her the sentiments she was harboring were too big for the actual picture.
She wasn't going to hold a grudge against Quinn or Puck – especially Puck, since she did 90% of the fucking up there, and she did still want them to know their daughter and be able to take part in Beth's life someday. And she didn't blame them for confounding being in Beth's life with trying to reconquer a role that wasn't theirs anymore, that they had legally given up. It was too easy to get your feelings scrambled. She had done so with Rachel too, and that had been why she had walked out the first time they met. She wasn't mad at them.
However, you don't threaten to take a kid from her mother. She could handle a lot of crap from people, but not that. Beth was her everything and she was her mom. She would do anything in the world to keep her child. She had been very frightened and more than a little ashamed, she was still working through the guilt for having gone back to Lima in the first place, and she just wanted to be allowed to feel distraught about the episode for a while.
Her mother was analytical and pragmatic. She wouldn't let her sullenly sulk about it alone, and Shelby wasn't in a moving on spirit yet. But it was nice that her mother had been evolving, from controlling her comments to actually worrying this much about her feelings. So Shelby just refused the talk silently, but with an appreciative smile.
"Finish what you're doing and come help with dinner?"
Her mother sort of asked, more like ordered, while she got up with Beth and walked out of the guest house. Shelby really did mean to oblige, but by the time she was finishing her homework it had gotten significantly colder outside, and she had lied down with her iPod for a couple of minutes. Before she knew, someone was brushing her hair. She opened her eyes to meet her father's hazel orbs glistening with amusement. Seeing her father's joy with things so basic as waking her up was another thing that made her glad she had stayed.
"Shelby bear, you'll miss the candle lightening."
"Already?" She asked groggily and he chuckled at how disoriented she was. "Please, tell me Freddie is here." She mumbled pulling the covers up to her chin and stalling to get up. She was always cranky to be woken up, and her mood wasn't about to cheer up if she was about to be chewed up for both not aiding and for the fact that her brother was in a plane somewhere.
"He's here." He responded while pushing the blanket away and pulling her up. She groaned and whined, just like when she was fifteen.
"You said you had my back, dad." She whispered accusingly, purposefully pouting. Her dad just chuckled and got up.
"When you're married Shelby bear, you'll understand that sometimes in order to stay alive, you better remain quiet."
Shelby huffed, but eventually got up, freshened herself up and changed into jeans and a long-sleeved sweatshirt before running towards the house. Gabe and Cecilia were already there with their ten year-old son Julian, and Shelby gave them all a hug before trailing into the living room to find Freddie sprawled on the couch with Beth on his lap.
She had a funny looking pig on her hands, and it was something that looked really breakable.
"What's that sweetheart?"
She asked Beth while she settled next to her brother, gave him a kiss on the cheek.
"Cat." Beth answered and Shelby frowned, confused, before her brother shook his head and mumbled "No, Beth. Gelt. Show your momma."
Beth shook the strange pig figure in her hands and squealed when the coins inside made a huge noise. She guessed she would be listening to that noise for a while and she gave her little brother a dirty look.
"You took my house." He grumbled in response, putting Beth on the floor. She immediately started to run around shaking that piggy, and Shelby had half a mind to run after her and ensure she wouldn't be tearing any expensive books of her mother's anymore, but she heard her father's voice in the vicinity and calmed down.
"Well, I have a baby. We need space."
"We live in a mansion, there's nothing but space."
The five-bedroom house had made sense when her parents had three young kids, but now it was just a crazy hassle they weren't willing to get rid of. But they had a cleaning service, so who was she to complain.
"Then why are you whining, Freddie?"
"How am I supposed to sneak anybody into the actual house?"
Shelby rolled her eyes and refused to answer that. She didn't need to know what her brother was doing and with whom. Also, he was a grown up, with a large sponsorship contract, and he could find a hotel.
"Do you want me to call mom to sort this out? She seems really eager to talk about narcissism today."
She couldn't help but to smirk when Freddie almost flinched at the suggestion. Gabe and he might have learned to take those conversations better than her, but they weren't super fond of it either. As if on cue, her mother appeared on the doorway, cleared her throat and gestured for them to follow her. They were both on their feet right away, and joined the rest of the family at the dining room to light up the first candle of the menorah and do their prayers.
Shelby never really practiced her religion unless she was home. She wasn't that faithful, but it was nice to feel like a part of something, to share this with her family.
The next days of Hanukkah were calmer. Probably because the weekend had been over and everybody had been swamped in work. Both the Hanover High-School and Dartmouth were still running, and her parents had so much in their hands with finals that they were even being liberal about celebrations. She had tried to keep rehearsals short, but the musical was really needing some fine tuning and their performance day was drawing really close, so she just texted her parents that she wouldn't be home anytime soon and braced herself for her mother's wrath as soon as the woman got wind of it. They were a bit relaxed, but Eleanor still expected everybody to be at the table every night for dinner. At least it was the Shabbat, so she wouldn't miss the candle lightening. Her mother and Gabe were so anal about Hanukkah rituals.
Freddie, of course, was home all day long so he had become Beth's designated baby-sitter, but he had been pretty laid-back about it. And he had taken her baby shopping for this crazy miniature skiing outfits, which had led to an enormous discussion at the dinner table over how she was not freaking allowing him to strap her kid to his chest on a fucking downhill. The memory made her smile. Of all the things she had missed about home, she had missed fighting with Freddie the most.
She stepped inside the house around nine; not a record for her by any means, but then she hadn't had a family during her Vocal Adrenaline days. She could still hear Gabe's deep voice somewhere in the house while she got rid of her trench coat and soaked knee boots at the foyer. She massaged some of the tension over her shoulders and walked into the kitchen, where she promptly hugged her mother and apologized discreetly for missing dinner. She knew how this worked; she had to mellow her mother a little. As she sat down between her mom and her brother and worked the sympathy card talking about the sacrifices of being an educator, her father got up and made a plate for her. Cecilia was trying really hard not to laugh at her blunt attempt of manipulation, and Freddie kept interrupting it with snarky comments, but it was the weekend and hell if she would start it by being scolded.
Her mother had actually been understanding about her tardiness, so no psycho-babble what so ever. She had looked to both of her brothers with a winning grin, which had been caught of course, so there was a quick lecture on arrogance. But all of them were forced to sit down for it, and she was really more focused on her food and her aching stomach, so in the end, nothing too bad.
Soon, her mother and father, plus Gabe and Cecilia retired to the living room, probably to do some praying or singing, but Freddie and she were far too disinterested and lingered at the table, letting a couple of minutes tick by.
"I'll get the vodka, you get the blankets." Freddie whispered conspiratorially and they both dashed in different directions quickly. She missed getting drunk with Freddie even more than fighting with Freddie.
She went into the guest room where her parents had set up a crib for Beth. Honestly, after they had painted it lavender and gotten a changing table, it was almost becoming a second nursery. She had argued it was ridiculous, since they had already decorated and furnished a perfect room for their granddaughter in the guest house, despite her objection, but as usual her words had fallen into deaf ears. Beth seemed as peaceful as always; her little girl had adapted into her family better than Shelby herself ever could. There was a baby monitor inside the crib, and she knew her parents must have the other with them, which put her at ease.
She kissed her baby's head gently, in order to not startle her, and then directed herself towards the small walk-in that room possessed. Despite the new use for the bedroom, the closet was still mostly for linens. She grabbed half a dozen warm blankets; there was no heating in the attic and they had learned that in the worst possible way. Once when she had been almost eighteen and Freddie had been fifteen, they had gotten hammered in the attic during New Year's Eve. She had passed out drunk and Freddie had staggered out of there to throw up at some point and forgotten her in the freezing place. She had ended up with pneumonia. The complexity of The Talk they had received was something she didn't like remembering. Her mother knew just too many synonyms for irresponsible. As if three weeks sick wasn't bad enough.
She met Freddie at the end of the hall. He had left his supplies on the floor and was pulling down the staircase. She picked up the cranberry juice and grinned. Freddie liked his booze pure, but she couldn't stomach it. She couldn't help herself; in a split second she had dropped everything and was embracing him from behind, her cheek resting against his muscular back.
"I really love you, you know?"
All Freddie did at first was snort and comment that they hadn't even opened a bottle yet. But eventually he had turned around and put his own arms around her and pulled her up so that her feet were dangling in the air and her forehead rested against his jaw.
"I'm glad you are home, Songbird."
They had gotten tipsy quite quickly. She was blaming her liver, but then she realized they had already gotten through a whole bottle of Grey Goose and her brother was taking a gulp of a second one already. Their hangover was going to be pretty painful, or maybe just hers. Freddie was an expert drinker and she wasn't that used to it anymore. She didn't even have a glass of wine ordinarily these last few years; she was a single mom.
She had sang half of the Thoroughly Modern Millie soundtrack under her breath, Freddie had managed to tell her three different stories about recent girlfriends she was praying not to recall, and they had talked and laughed about an assortment of memories. But now they were both in silence, Shelby because her head was spinning and Freddie apparently because he was pondering something. And then he finally asked the thing nobody had. "Why are you home?"
Shelby had glared at the side of his face, and shoved an elbow into his rib. "What do you mean? Am I not welcomed here?"
"You are; you just never cared to be. What happened in Ohio?"
Before she had any time to think about a good answer, she heard herself saying "So, so much" in a little voice that was almost a weep. Man, she hated being drunk and out of control. She felt her brother's hand caressing her arm and she just wanted to kick him away, but she couldn't move. Her limbs were very heavy.
"C'mon Shelby, you promised everybody that you would put your walls down and try to be an actual member of this family. And I seem to be the only one aware that you're bullshitting us."
She was offended enough that she had sat up right away, struggling to disentangle herself from the wool blankets and looked back at him with a frown.
"I don't know what you are talking about," she mumbled, even though it was a lie. She had been keeping the ugliest parts of her life tucked away.
"Yes, you do. We were raised by a brilliant mind of modern psychology; I can tell when my own sister is wearing a facade."
Shelby sighed and got up. She really couldn't deal with this, and if even Freddie knew she wasn't being sincere, she could guess the rest of the family was in on it. And she didn't know what was more upsetting, that they wouldn't press on it – probably because they were afraid of losing her entirely once more, or that Freddie had made the call that she couldn't get away with it anymore.
She ignored Freddie calling her back, even when his tone delved into pleading and raced down the stairs trying not to wobble and fall on her face. Not an easy feat when everything was a bit blurry. She was grateful for the fact that most of the floor was carpeted, because she had managed to come down the other flight of stairs and then cross the foyer without grabbing any attention. So, before Freddie could reach her or anybody could hear her, she put on her boots and her coat and stumbled outside.
Usually when she was this aggravated, she would drive around to calm down. However, in her state, she would have to settle for walking. At least the icy air was penetrating her brain and her lungs and sobering her up through every step.
She had ended up at the park near her parents' home in her distraction; it was deserted and she sat on one of the cold swings. When she had been growing up, she would always run there for a little space when her mother was growing to be too much or her brothers were picking on her. She had had a nasty habit of storming out, until her mother irked her too much by telling her that storms out were the lowest form of attention seeking maneuvers. She realized now that her mom was a genius; if Eleanor became unhappy with her attitude all she had to do was claim it was one of Shelby's desperate cries for help and Shelby would quit it.
Eleanor had failed to see though that the effect was Shelby shutting out anything that could make her another basket case. It made her hide the true Shelby deep within herself, until she was sure nobody would ever think she was broken. It made her lie and keep secretive the most important events of her life, and now she felt overwhelmed. It was exhausting to pretend she was okay 24/7.
She heard steps on the dirt ground, and didn't even look up. Gabe had always been the one tasked to get her back when she would leave the house back at their childhood, and she was sure he would be the first to find her. He wasted no time claiming the swing next to hers and closing his significantly bigger palm around her cold hand. That night was frosty; they were probably getting some snow in the next few hours and she had left without a hat or gloves.
"You know, everybody can tell your sadness is greater than never now."
Shelby closed her eyes and rested her forehead on the icy chain of the swing. Freddie had probably told the family why she had stormed out and they had likely all signed up to gang up on her for the truth. She should have expected as much.
"Be honest with me, Shelby bear, does being home make you this miserable? Or are you just unhappy?"
Shelby just swayed silently, not sure how to respond that question. She wouldn't say she was an unhappy person; not anymore at least. And being at home was actually allowing her to feel safe, for once.
"I'm just so frustrated, all the time," she finally commented bitterly, admitting the one thing she didn't have so far, even to herself.
"I know. And I'm aware we are still worlds apart. But we've been trying to figure out what's the right way to love you and support you for years now. Help us out a little, Shelbs."
Shelby knew it was stupid and it only proved she was extremely self-centered most times, but she had no clue her brother felt this aggravated with her. That her whole family, probably, was more thwarted with the fact they couldn't seem to make her feel joyful and liked, than with her choices and her selfish needs. And she knew things would never get better if she didn't tell them who she really was.
"Five years ago, just around this time, my boyfriend Shawn and I got into a car accident. We were coming back from a party, he was drinking and we were fighting about my little investment in the prospect of a family. Shawn had a dislocated shoulder. I suffered so much trauma, the doctors had to remove my spleen and uterus to stop the internal bleeding."
"How the hell we didn't hear about that, Shelby?"
"Shawn was my emergency contact. By the time I was conscious, I really didn't feel like picking up the phone and being 'Hi mom and dad. Happy Hanukkah. Listen up, I just got into a gruesome accident, had a couple of surgeries, some time in a coma, can't have children anymore. No biggie. I'm sorry my dick of a boyfriend didn't ring you'. I was distraught, Shawn was beyond distressed; I couldn't deal with five other people being loudly upset in the same room as me. I'm sorry, okay?"
She lifted her eyes to face her brother for the first time and the only thing she encountered was pure shock and pain. Not anger, not even disappointment. Still, his voice wavered when he asked "What else have you been hiding from us?"
"Let's go home."
She tried to get up but he stopped her. The anger was definitively starting to emerge.
"Shelby," he pled through gritted teeth.
"Let's go home, and I'll come clean. I promise."
They walked back in silence. At some point it had indeed started snowing, and Gabe had taken off his hat and forced it into Shelby head, since she was trembling. She tried to keep her hands warm in the pockets of her coat, but was failing miserably. She was damning sobriety for not waiting until she was back inside her warm home.
When Gabe and she made it, her mother was pacing the foyer with an irate expression on her face. Before Eleanor could even open her mouth, however, Gabe pushed Shelby out of the way of her mother's righteous fury and shook his head, before pushing her into the living room. His hands were so tight on her upper arms, she wondered if he was afraid she would try to bolt.
Her dad and Freddie were tensely standing too, and when Freddie noted her shuddering as she shed her trench, he immediately gave her his hot chocolate. She took a tentative sip, but it wasn't spiked; she guessed he had gotten a lecture about inebriation already.
There was a confusing moment as all three Corcoran men fussed over her and then they managed to pull her close to the fireplace. Freddie sat on the floor next to her and then her father loudly settled on her other side. She drank her chocolate, being a bit weirded out by this display of overwhelming concern; she had only been outside for an hour or so and she was an adult. Even when she had been a child the reprimand would always come out first. Well, the fact that her mother was nowhere in sight probably explained why she wasn't getting screamed at. But the sudden coddling was weird, if welcomed.
Her father, despite his usual intense somberness, was still her daddy, and in circumstances in which she was feeling particularly small and needy, his big bear build was a relief. She simply allowed herself to fall into his chest, and the comfort of his familiar smell and warmth was so tremendous, she was weeping before she could stop herself from emotional over sharing.
Her eternal denial that she wasn't fine or needed somebody in her camp broke down completely; it was practically sliding out of her as if it was liquid. It had always been a destructive relationship to have with her family. She was fine with standing in the darkness, even if it meant she was alone and invisible; even if it meant she had demons. And singing or acting other people's words was the only way she had ever managed to come out and face the harsh, cold light in which her pragmatic parents resided. She wasn't scared of standing out there with them and letting them see her wounds; she was terrified of having to explain they were self-inflicted. And that not reaching out to them while she had been burning didn't mean she didn't love them; it actually meant she loved them too much.
Her apologies flew out before the truth; it maybe didn't make one goddamn sense to her whole family, but she felt safer in this shitty Pandora's Box move she was about to pull on the few people that had no clue how convoluted she turned her charmed upper middle class little life into, if she explained that she didn't want them to ever realize just how hopeless she actually was. That, at the same time, she was deeply sorry she had never allowed them to fix her properly, because if they had been able to do that, she wouldn't have hurt so many people. And she didn't want to hurt them on top of everything, so her silence had been a way to protect them.
She didn't say or realize, it was a way to protect herself too, because she would have never been able to self-destruct as effectively and persistently if they were all trying to pull her back and put patches all over her insatiable need to be loved, be admired, be praised. But she could either succeed or validate her feelings that she didn't deserve good things, because being perfect and wanted but still a failure was just unbearable.
"Sweetheart, is this about Ohio?" Her dad questioned softly, his hand running through her long brown hair.
It was ironic how New York had been the place she had single-mindedly obsessed about for years as her holy destiny, and then it turned out to be an illusion. Ohio, the most unlikely of places – and her fancy family didn't care much for the Midwest of the United States in general, had been the place where all her landmarks happened. It was where Rachel had grown up, where Beth was born and became her daughter, and where she had made a decent something of herself. It was also in Ohio where she hit the floor again, and again, and again.
"I had to leave Ohio because I did something bad," she muttered into her father's shirt, not sure if anybody other than him could hear her, and not caring. In her family, at some point, they would conference and check if everybody was properly debriefed before they all decided what they thought about it together. It was a strange process she never fully understood, probably because she had never been a part of it. She felt so dirty passing judgment or even merely sitting down to compare notes on a decision, as if they were a freaking cult.
"Please, tell me it wasn't something illegal," her mother's dry, no-nonsense voice came from somewhere behind her and Shelby didn't turn to face her.
"No, it wasn't illegal. He was 18, and he wasn't really my student, I only subbed for his class twice," she explained lamely.
"Sis! I never pegged you for being this naughty!" Freddie commended her and even if Shelby hadn't moved around to face the room she would have been able to feel the thick tension, and the loaded glares shooting in her little brother's direction.
"There is more, though." She knew she sounded dejected, but hell, she felt atrocious. "He is Beth's biological father."
Shelby took that everybody was merely too baffled to react, as all she encountered were expressionless numbness and substantial silence. Well, all but her mother, whose glare said more than a million words.
"And of course, him being the immature 18 year-old boy that I should never forgotten that he was, my refusal to let him become my boyfriend and play house with me sent him straight to his ex-girlfriend, Beth's biological mother, who had been trying to undermine my parental rights since I had reached out to them," Shelby took a deep breath, holding it inside of her with all her might. She couldn't keep sobbing, and she couldn't crumble completely.
"Undermine how?" Gabe asked from the couch, clearly bothered by all the things he was coming to know that night about her.
"I let them babysit, and she planted incriminating things in my condo and called CPS to report Beth as endangered. Then, she tried to use the knowledge of my indiscretion to get me to lose everything."
"Is she deranged or just mentally challenged?" Freddie asked in a very scary impersonation of their mother. Shelby shot him a dirty glare. "What? She can't do that, can she? She can't get her parental rights back! If you were unfit, wouldn't they try to place her with family first? And we are Beth's family! Plus, if you ever lost your job, we would all support you to the end of your days. Right?" Freddie asked urgently to nobody, but then faced them all one by one, stopping at Gabe, who just shrugged.
"I'm not sure, Freddie, I'm not a lawyer, but I'm close friends with some of the best of country. So are mom and dad. It would be a hell of a fight."
Freddie seemed to calm down a bit, and squeezed Shelby's shoulder in a sign of solidarity. She had never felt like such an important member of this family before; she wasn't even sure she would have phoned them if she had gotten in real trouble, and that made her pissed at herself.
"When this girl, who obviously has some sociopathic traits, though with the delusion factor and maybe some untreated post-birth depression, it could be case of a psychotic break too, approached you with these dangerous accusations, after she had already attempted to destabilize your home, did you confirm it?"
Shelby took a deep breath and faced her mother. Of course Eleanor had taken that route! Why would her mother ever fail to be predictable in categorizing everybody by disorders and everything by types of episodes? Shelby was actually stunned there had been nothing said about her behavior with Puck; for now.
"Yes," she responded through clenched teeth, knowing nothing good was going to be said next.
"Shelby! You should have denied it, told this girl you were suing the both of them for defamation and threatened to get a restraining order! Actually, you should have gotten that restraining order either way."
It didn't surprise Shelby either that those were her mom's ideas of how she should have dealt with it all. And obviously not one of the Corcoran men was jumping in front of this train, and she had to try and stop it by herself, shaky hands and all. Those were her sins, and this was her consequence – dealing with the scary, self-righteous force that was her mother. There was a reason nobody with a brain crossed Eleanor Corcoran; she didn't exactly regard her disaffections with sympathy, or even empathy most times.
"That seems excessive and a bit cruel, mom. And it was my fault! I know it was a mistake; my judgment was clouded and I was lonely, and I fucked up."
"Yes, you did. And you better never get back to Ohio, or anywhere near these people. We are not going to allow anybody to endanger our granddaughter's well being."
"It's not your call. I'm her mother. I make decisions in regards to what's best for Beth."
They were both screaming, Shelby knew. They were gunning and baring teeth, and they would slide into panting for air territory soon enough if they kept up, but neither was going to back down and she doubted even her father was ready to throw himself in the middle of all that hostile energy.
"Well, you have done a shitty job of it so far. You allowed these two people that had no business being around Beth anymore into your house, and they lied to you, used your trust to try to take your child away and threatened you."
"Yes, I was in the wrong in the way I approached this situation with Beth's birth parents. I clearly felt I could handle it, and got swallowed by those kids having very strong agenda's of their own and I committed big errors. I don't regret pulling the plug and leaving because I felt that everything that I said about their relationship with Beth being on my terms didn't stay in their heads at all, but I hope this experience will give them the opportunity to deal with these issues, because I don't regret trying to make this work either. This might have ended up short of a disaster, but I still want Beth to know who the people who made her are."
"Well, that's stupid, my dear."
Shelby took a deep breath and forced herself to calm down. Maybe she was being stupid, thinking she could handle Quinn and Puck being in contact with her kid ever again. She could end up in a position that wasn't pretty again, and she could end up having to do what her family wished she had already done – fight.
It was unlikely she would be the one to reach out again. And if they tried to do so themselves too soon, she wasn't sure she could be the bigger person – not when she was still placated every night with nightmares about an empty crib and a pain so colossal she could only think about ending it; ending it all, forever. Not when she still woke up in the middle of night covered in cold sweat and biting on her pillow, her heart beating so fast it made her want to throw up, until she would hear her daughter's little unmistakable fussing on the monitor.
But she didn't want her daughter being like Rachel, 16 years old with this huge gap in the back of her mind and no the courage to ask questions. She wanted to at least give Beth names, faces, personalities, and let her be able to understand her full story. And if Beth wanted to know them, she was going to support her child.
"You can think whatever you want, mother. You don't know what is like to give up your baby."
Shelby saw her mother roll her eyes in annoyance; Eleanor always felt she was being too dramatic, too empathetic, too human. "Neither does you," her mother retorted coldly and Shelby felt her heart tear.
"You are wrong."
Shelby knew this would be the worst part of the conversation. In regards to Quinn and Puck they might not approve of her actions, but she had known they would be a hundred per cent on her side. Also, they had always known Beth was adopted, even if they hadn't understood why, so the existence of birth parents wasn't an event. Rachel's was.
"What the hell do you mean by that?" Freddie asked with wide-eyes. Even her dad was eyeing her as if she had grown another head.
"After I left Curtis and I was penniless in NY for a while, I met this nice gay couple who wanted nothing more than a family and they offered me a lot of money to be their surrogate. And I said yes."
And she would never regret it, even if it meant her whole family was repulsed by her. Even if they too thought she had been a cash-whore. Leroy and Hiram had been great men, who had a dream many people couldn't understand or accept, who were told to give up. She had identified with them. She knew that if they could have their dream come true, they would cherish it every day of their lives, and she hadn't been wrong. The guys spoiled Rachel even a little too rotten. The way that the girl acted or reacted sometimes made it clear she hadn't grown up in a house where she had heard 'no' a lot.
"Oh my god," her mother closed her eyes and whispered into her hands, and Shelby knew she was perplexed.
"What?" Freddie screamed and got to his feet. Then he just stood there, looking down at her, with a frown. Gabe was silent, but his eyes bore recrimination and she couldn't face her father quite yet.
"I didn't realize letting my baby go would be like ripping myself apart. I was naïve. I was young and I was too dumb to realize how much I'd love her until I heard her heartbeat. And then there were all of these contracts…"
"It's a girl? You have a daughter? We have another granddaughter?"
Shelby looked back into her guarded and usually humorous father; it seemed like she had aged him ten years in the past few minutes. The last time she had seen him become so ragged so quickly, Freddie had taken a dive out of a snow hill and broken fourteen bones.
"Yes, daddy," she confirmed softly. He hugged her; no matter what, she was always going to be his princess and he was always going to be the first one to defend her.
"And do you know her?" Gabe asked.
Both of her brothers looked defensive and infuriated, but also pretty inquisitive. She expected nothing less; Gabe was a great father, and both of her brothers were invested uncles. It made her smile, despite the still palpable tension.
"Yes, Gabe. Her name is Rachel."
Gabe smiled too and leaned forward, his curiosity winning over. "How old is she?" He added.
"She turns 17 next week. She is a senior in High School."
"The same High-School in which you thought for many years or the one you just left?" Her mother interrupted, and asked smartly. Another thing that made life with Eleanor very hard was that nothing bypassed her. The woman was like a shark, and when it was her blood in the water, Shelby recoiled.
"The one I just left."
Sure enough, her mother's mood snapped so fast, that now even her brothers were looking like they would jump in front of Shelby, just in case.
"I can't believe you," Eleanor hissed in a particular way that made Shelby's blood cold with dread. "I can't with your irresponsibility, your selfishness, your narcissism…"
"Not now, Eleanor!" Her father roared and rose from the ground. Shelby wasted no time getting on her feet too and sliding slightly behind the man's body. "For fuck's sake, not now. I think our daughter has been in enough pain without us adding our self-righteousness to it."
"I'm so sorry, daddy," Shelby whined, her head hanging in shame. She was basically giving them one new granddaughter, and telling them she wasn't really theirs and she was all grown up. That was kind of cruel. Yet, her dad just cupped her cheeks like he did when she was little and she had been crying, and kissed her forehead.
"Will we ever get to meet her?" Gabe questioned, closing in too and putting an arm around her back. Shelby shrugged. Someday? Yes, they would probably meet Rachel. But that was a far, far line in the horizon.
She sighed loudly and sat back down at the couch. Gabe and her father flanked her once again, and even Freddie, who had been standing for a while now, settled across from them. Her mother was the only one who didn't move.
"I could try to arrange that, next year might be better though. Her fathers are already not entirely pleased that I'm sort of in her orbit, since there were like four different clauses in my contract that said I wasn't allowed to contact Rachel in any way until she was 18. I don't want them having a stroke."
She had only talked to the Berrys twice during this whole debacle. First, when she went back to Lima, to let them know she would be teaching at their daughter's school and then they had called her when she had given Rachel her letter of recommendation back; they made it clear they still didn't approve of her being around without their permission or input, which she understood now better than ever, but they thought the letter was really sweet.
"But you still talk to her?" Gabe pressed, since she had lost herself in her memories.
"Since I moved here I email her at least once a week, we text sometimes and message on Facebook. She is fine. It hasn't been that long since I left. She is celebrating Hanukkah with her dads."
"She's Jewish?" Her mother asked, seeming honestly surprised and Shelby almost rolled her eyes at the fact that she had been the first to ask; nobody cared more about religion than Eleanor. She could probably redeem herself about 20% just by choosing a couple that raised her granddaughter Jewish. The other 80% were never, ever going to be atoned.
"Yes, she is."
"And is she like you in any way?" Gabe asked a bit warily, probably worried that it was a sensitive matter. It sort of was very thorny, but at the same time, she would always be proud that a piece of her had helped form this incredible young woman that was Rachel.
"Oh God, almost in every way." Shelby gushed and beamed at her brother. Gabe had pulled her close and she rested her head on his shoulder, and the whole family fell into a discomfited silence while they processed all of this.
Except, Eleanor's method was discussing things, and not in the most prudent ways either, so as soon as she had opened her mouth, Shelby's dad basically dragged her into the office so they could have a conversation. Shelby wanted to support the both of them at this time, but she felt too drained to cope with her mother's badgering. She just needed a good night of sleep; after that, she would surrender herself for sacrifice and let Eleanor skin her alive.
Gabe had phoned Cecilia, who had taken their son home when Shelby had vanished, to let her know he wouldn't go home that night and she made it upstairs with her two brothers. She took her cell from her bag, because she wanted to satiate their interest in Rachel. They were out of vodka, and she didn't even want to ask Freddie what had happened to the other bottle – their mother had very likely emptied it at the sink or something, but they managed to find wine and whisky.
Freddie grabbed his iPad, so they transferred the files there to have a better screen; the attic was beyond dark and Shelby wasn't a spectacular filmmaker by any means. Once they were settled – which with a drink in hand, Shelby had pulled out Rachel's performance of Somewhere on the opening night of West Side Story.
"She's you," Freddie muttered, barely trying to disguise that he had tears on his eyes. Shelby chuckled, knowing her brother must be on his way to an alcoholic coma if he was weeping in front of Gabe and her, and finding it irreparably cute.
"I know. I sat through every single performance of that musical gushing; mostly in the back though, so I could cry without being seen. She's just insanely talented."
And now Shelby was crying herself, and Gabe was looking at them as if he was going to hit them for being so emotional, when he was obviously suffocating his own feelings in order to not overwhelm Shelby.
Shelby had needed to recall every detail she knew about Rachel's life – her plans, her quirks, her likes and dislikes, because her brothers needed all the information about their niece. And she had showed them every video, not only from WSS, but also the ones from Rachel's My Space she had downloaded, including every single competition in which she had ever been featured.
One of them was. Of course, the table turning Sectionals from two years ago, with Don't Rain on My Parade. And then she had broken down once and for all, perhaps even admitted to Gabe and Freddie how much she wished she hadn't walked away, that she had fought for custody, even knowing that it would have been wrong, selfish and cruel if she had done so, and at some point she had dozed off in their arms on their cold attic. 2011 was some Hanukkah.
A/N: Next chapter – Rachel meets the Corcorans.