Shelby Corcoran – December, 2000

(Part I)


By the time Shelby Corcoran wakes up, she finds that her husband, Hiram has already left for work. An emergency room RN, he possesses a notoriously strict schedule; he is on for four days, and then three nights in tandem before he's granted a five day amnesty – then repeat.

Today marks day one of a new cycle, meaning that it is already bound to be a long week and Shelby isn't even out of bed yet.

Glancing upwards towards the clock, Shelby realizes astonished that she's allowed herself to sleep past ten o'clock… What is even more astounding, she believes, is that her children have yet to bound into her bedroom to wake her up themselves.

You see Shelby Corcoran has been blessed with the gift of two personal alarm clocks – a six year old and a four year old. Their selling factor rests in the idea that these alarms can never fail; they're never late, they possess the ability to set themselves, and no matter how often, or how early they ever wake you up, you can never seem to stop loving them.

Motherhood and unconditional love, after all, was a direct synonym.

Shelby leaps out of her bed in a heartbeat, pausing only to slip her feet into their respectful slippers before she rushes downstairs, a worried chill travelling the length of her spine that she knows has absolutely nothing to do with the frigid December air.

The living room is spotless and looks just as she had left it the night before. Experience tells her that this is not the mark of two school-aged children; especially two school-aged children who – only mere days ago – happened to have been spoiled rotten for Hanukah.

She doesn't know whether she should be relieved or concerned.

"Rachel!" She calls for her youngest first, switching gears when she receives no response; the name of her oldest slipping from her lips with an air of worry. "Noah!"

"I'm in here, momma!" The familiar drawl of her eldest has her releasing a prominent sigh of relief; a breath of air that she hadn't even realized that she had been holding until she was struck with the liberating head rush of a sudden oxygen flow.

She follows her son's voice eagerly, sauntering into the kitchen with her shoulders poised with strategic confidence in an effort to prevent Noah from perceiving the warrantless fear that had been coursing through her veins mere seconds ago. After all, kids – she knew from experience – had the ability to sense emotion like a shark could sense blood in the water.

Upon turning the corner, the first thing she notices is that her six year old is standing atop a granite countertop that is taller than he is, his barely three foot frame stretching to its absolute threshold as he pauses midstride. She has come at just the right time, or so it seems, to prevent a dangerous ascent up the flimsy cabinet shelving units; the ones that have been in this house longer than they have – the goal; the box of cookies that Shelby strategically placed out of the arm's reach of her always-hungry son.

Or so she thought.

"Noah Eifah Corcoran, what have I told you about climbing on the counters!" She scolds the boy who immediately shrouds away from his mother's threatening tone, desperately trying to splay innocence across his face in an effort to make up for the fact that he had been cornered in the scene of the crime red handed.

"But daddy says to only do it when you're not looking!" He uses the charm that by the good graces of genetics, his father has passed along to him because he knows that it will work on his mother, just like it always does. Those Corcoran boys possessed biologically, an ability to always win over her heart. "And you were asleep so you weren't looking!"

He flashes her that million dollar smile that he is already famous for, the two teeth missing at either corner of his wide mouth melting any anger that Shelby had previously had inside of her clear out. One day, her son was going to be a heartbreaker… The idea alone worried her already.

"You've been listening to your father too much." She shakes her head slowly although her face is luminous as she grabs her son beneath either arm and hoists him into the safety provided naturally by her outstretched arms.

"Where's your sister, squirt?" She asks the boy, tucking him securely into her hip bone with one arm as she uses her free appendage to begin wiping down the mess that Noah has left behind in his wake, multi-tasking having become a particular skill that she had inherited alongside three rambunctious children.

"She didn't want to play." Noah sighs, looking genuinely downtrodden towards the idea that his favorite playmate had rejected him; a rare occurrence, Shelby thinks, giving the exponential amounts of energy possessed by her four year old.

"What do you mean?" Shelby asks, pausing in her ministrations in order to raise Noah up a little bit higher into her arms.

"She wouldn't wake up."

Shelby's face pales visibly beneath the mysterious nature of her young son's words as her heart begins to beat instinctively harder against her ribcage. She has Noah down and on the floor and is racing towards Rachel's bedroom before the boy so much as has the opportunity to perceive his mother's abrupt change in demeanor.

What had Noah meant when he'd told her that he couldn't wake up Rachel this morning?

"Rachel," She bursts into her daughter's room with a harsh, unexpected force that makes even her flinch; but standing amidst the pink surroundings of her stereotypical young diva's bedroom, she can't help but to feel as if she has never felt a sense of relief like that by which washes over her as she watches Rachel's tiny frame shifting slightly in her sleep in an effort to investigate the intrusive sound.

Her child's eyes squint upwards momentarily, adjusting slowly to the blinding natural sunlight seeping through her windows before they finally connect with those of her mother's; identical orbs greeting each other in a storm of concern and confusion.

"Good morning, sweetie." Shelby attempts to brush off her concern but still, she can't help but to wonder whether or not Rachel's sleeping so late has anything to do with the cold that she has been coming down with for the past several days, or more specifically, the indication that it was only getting worse.

Shelby opens the drapes gently, drowning Rachel in light as the young girl tucks the small stuffed rabbit that she is never seen without securely underneath her arm in an effort to leave her hands free to be placed instinctively across her eyes, trying desperately to block it.

"Why are you so sleepy this morning, Star?" Shelby questions her four year old, perching herself at the edge of her daughter's bed as the girl rolls sideways and away from her mother in her bid to fall straight back to sleep.

"Rachel, honey…" Shelby sighs with the frustrations stemming from her confusion towards her daughter's odd behavior. She is already leaving herself a mental note to call Rachel's pediatrician when she clutches gently at the child's shoulders, forcing Rachel to face her so that she can't help but pause alongside a distinct gasp.

Her hands slip subconsciously from Rachel's shoulders, leaving the girl slipping from her grasp and back down and onto the bed where she rolls away immediately from her mother's intrusive glare, blocking Shelby's vision once more of the gradient of purple and blue bruises that align the left side of her daughter's face.