A/N- I actually died at the support on the last chapter lol I sweaaaar I was kidding and sorry this took me a little longer than anticipated to get out. Was busy turning myself into a physical manifestation of 'the lakes' by Taylor Swift. A couple of things: answers are coming soon, I promise; S and J have a purely familial ily relationship lmao; Spawn, you make me cackle every time.
Don't even come for me bc I know bits of this are so self-indulgent but I listened to folklore too much and the flashback happened. This is pretty long, but honestly to me has interlude vibes and I'll probably edit it at some point.
Slight t/w for mentions of substance abuse (but only mentions) and grief heavy. Yikes... Enjoy!
Rachel rests her chin on the edge of the table, narrowing her eyes in focus. For once, there's barely a thought in her head besides calculating which piece needs to move where next. She's working on traversing one pawn across the board in order to reclaim her fallen rook, and subtly positioning herself for an attack on her mother's queen. She's pretty certain the woman hasn't noticed this yet, though.
Her mother isn't necessarily a bad player, but it's not hard for Rachel to believe her when she said she hadn't played for years. She hasn't herself either, of course, but the second she'd held the black pieces in her hands, fingers tracing over the wooden carvings, she'd immediately felt at home.
And that, with its warmth and comfort and security, is something she's been missing for a while.
In the end, she moves a knight gracefully over Shelby's bishop. It's a hesitant tactic, meant to lure her mother's more valuable pieces out into the open through reckless temptation. Rachel would never be so careless with her own queen.
Her skills of strategy have always been more attuned to the attack than the defence, so she's thriving as she navigates the movements of each piece across the board. Her willing army of inky soldiers rarely falter; they're aloof, disconnected, ruthless. Rachel's in control, yes, but sometimes she feels as though the pieces call out to her, telling her where they belong.
Shelby frowns down at the board. "Okay, I literally have no idea what you're doing, which means," she picks up a piece at random and shuffles it by one square, "I don't know what I'm meant to do, either."
"I don't think you're supposed to admit that," Rachel tells her as she makes her next move, claiming another pawn with a bishop that's now left vulnerable to attack. She bites back a smug smile when Shelby's eyes widen at this.
Take the bait.
Four moves later, she successfully takes Shelby's queen. She laughs haughtily as she knocks it over with a lowly pawn and Shelby rolls her eyes.
"Yeah, alright," she grumbles. "Very good."
"Thanks," Rachel grins. "I thought so, too."
Shelby reaches to make her next move. "You said you played a lot with your dads?"
"Yeah," Rachel nods. She doesn't allow herself to focus on that fact. Her eyes flick across the board; Shelby has way fewer pieces than her remaining. She won't allow herself to get too cocky yet, but maybe if she just-
"Oh, come on!" the woman groans as her last bishop becomes Rachel's latest victim.
Rachel beams; she's really missed this.
"You can't outrun me forever," she quips a few minutes later when Shelby moves her king a square to the left yet again.
"I can try."
Rachel rolls her eyes. "Bring it," she smirks.
"Sorry," Shelby gasps. "Is my pain funny to you?"
"Nope, just your dramatics."
Shelby pulls a face of mock-outrage, which Rachel returns with a raised eyebrow.
When she doesn't think about anything too much, it's easy to talk to her mother. The woman matches her in wit and sharpness and extensive knowledge of musical theatre history. But she can't turn off the thoughts that spiral from that. They're similar. In good ways and bad ways, they're alike. And maybe… Maybe that's not always something she has to hide from - maybe she can use that.
"Shelby?"
"Yeah, babe?" Shelby replies, eyes still fixed on the board.
"Um… How did you do it? After everything happened, how did you-" She's cut off by the sound of a ringtone coming from across the kitchen. They both turn to look at Shelby's phone sitting on the kitchen island.
"Sorry, honey." Shelby stands up from the table and puts a finger up. "One second, hold that thought."
Rachel slumps a little as she turns back to the board. A lazy finger pushes her queen into position and then she lets her gaze fall into the checked pattern.
"Hi, Anna," Shelby voice drifts over from the other side of the kitchen. "Yeah, no, we're fine. What's up?… Oh, crap - is he okay?… Right, yeah… No, don't be stupid. Of course she can come… No, honestly, Rachel and I are just having a lazy afternoon at home… Anna, it's fine, I promise… Okay, yeah… See you soon, bye."
Rachel spins around in her chair when she hears her mother hang up, and shoots her a questioning look.
"Sorry," Shelby says, replacing the phone on the counter. "That was Anna, Luke's sister-in-law. Her son hurt his arm at the park and the nanny's taken him to the hospital. She wanted to see whether she could bring her daughter over here while she goes to be with him in the ER." She grimaces. "Kind of feel like we might have manifested that accident by reading that story earlier, don't you think?"
"Oh, yeah. Sure."
Shelby walks back towards her, frowning. "Is that okay, Rach? It would just be a lot easier for her if we can watch Maya here for a while."
"That's fine," Rachel replies.
And it is. Fundamentally, she knows it is, so she's not sure why it's like the room has suddenly drained of colour. It's as monochrome as the chess board.
"Okay, thank you," Shelby says gratefully. "She's a lot of fun - I think you'll really like her."
And Rachel just nods back, because asking, 'How do you know what I'll think?' seems rude and unprovoked. But she can't think of anything better to say. The projection of herself is flickering; everything's become too much like a burned out reel of an old movie.
"Anyway - sorry, babe," Shelby continues as she slides back into her seat. "What were you saying?"
"Oh, nothing. I… I think I'm going to go up to my room for a while." She stands and moves to walk out of the room so that she can go and try to sort her head out.
"What about our game?" Shelby calls after her. The concern and despondency lacing her voice echoes through each word.
"Oh." Rachel stops and turns back to face her mother. "Checkmate."
0
A change into sweats, laying on her bed for a while, and even a brief text exchange with Noah before he left to go to the gym, haven't done anything to help settle her unease. She can't even pinpoint the cause of it and, now the chess game is over, every other horrible thought is making up for lost time in her head, too. She can't work out why she can't apply the same drive to herself. Or why chess pieces can tell her where they belong, but her own head and heart can't work it out.
She curls up on her side under her blankets and begins to hum random tunes to block it all out. She's resorted to 'Twinkle twinkle little star' by the time the doorbell rings. It takes only a few moments for voices to drift up the stairs and for curiosity to get the better of her. Quietly, she slips out of her bedroom and creeps along the hallway until she's got a view of the front door through the bannister railing. She kneels down and watches.
There's a woman with dark auburn hair standing on the doorstep, who Rachel assumes must be Anna. She's shaking her head as she exchanges some words with Shelby about a tragic fall from grace on the monkey-bars, and a nanny service she's never using again.
Noah had always stood under Rachel when she tried to use them, she remembers, promising that he'd catch her before she could fall.
Suddenly, there's a loud cry of, "Aunt Shelby!" as a small girl hurtles through the door and wraps her arms tightly around Shelby's waist.
From behind the bars of the bannister, Rachel swallows the lump in her throat. It gets stuck on the choking feeling of being out of place. A black pawn was set up on the wrong side of the board. Or it got dumped there halfway through a game, a tainting figure of grief and gloom.
"Hey, bug," Shelby laughs, squeezing the girl back. "I missed you. Have you got bigger since the last time I saw you? What's your mom been feeding you?"
"Nothing!" the girl says loudly, shaking her head and throwing a glare over her shoulder at her mother. "I didn't even have lunch after dance class because Dexter broke his arm!"
"We don't know for sure that it's broken yet, Maya," Anna reminds her. "And I'm sure Aunt Shelby can find something to feed you before you waste away."
"I'm so hungry," Maya says, looking back up at Shelby with widened eyes.
"I'll think about feeding you if you're good," the woman says wryly and the girl lets out a long whine. "Kidding, bug. Why don't you go put your bag in the end bedroom and then we'll see what we can make you?"
"'Kay!"
"Crap," Rachel hisses to herself. She tries to clamber back to her feet, but, by the time she does so, she's already face-to-face with the younger girl. For a moment, they both size the other up.
"Hi," Maya says finally, though it's loaded with suspicion. "Who are you?"
"Uh…I…" Rachel flickers and goes blank. All she can focus on is the tingling feeling in her hands from where they were pressed into the carpet.
"I'm Maya," the girl says, emphasising her name as if to demonstrate what she's after. Rachel apparently falters for another moment too long because she ultimately shrugs, hikes her pink backpack up on her shoulder and scuttles off down the hallway.
Rachel shakes her head after her; she really doesn't know what's wrong with her. Maybe it's the fact that Maya, with her dark hair, tan skin, and big brown eyes, makes her feel like she's looking into a mirror and seeing her younger self. Maybe it's that all of this is a reminder that Shelby's had a whole life - a whole family - outside of her.
Either way, she thinks she needs to go back to bed for a while. Uninterrupted, fulfilling sleep has been evading her for weeks now, and she can feel that taking its toll in the constant, dull ache at the back of her head and her tired eyes.
Maya, however, has other plans. Before Rachel can make it back through the door of her bedroom, the little girl has grabbed a hold of her hand and is pulling her along the hallway and down the stairs.
"Aunt Shelby!" she shouts again as she lets go of Rachel and jumps the last few steps. She ignores the ensuing warnings to be careful and turns to point at Rachel. "She was upstairs and she doesn't know her name."
Rachel feels her cheeks burn scarlet when her mother and Anna both turn to look at her quizzically. "Sorry, I…"
Shelby beckons her over with a smile and places her hands on her shoulders, giving them a gentle squeeze. Rachel's caught between relaxing into the touch and wanting to hang her head in shame at how stupid she must be making both of them look right now.
"Bug," Shelby starts, "I have someone very special for you to meet."
"You know her?" Maya checks skeptically.
Shelby laughs. "Yeah, I know her. This," another squeeze of her shoulders, "is my daughter, Rachel."
"Your daughter?"
"Maya," Anna groans, "we talked about this, remember? I'm sorry, Shelbs."
The other woman waves her off. "It's fine. Yep, Rachel is my daughter."
"Oh," Maya frowns. She studies Rachel carefully again and, this time, the older girl forces a smile back. "Um - hi!" she says eventually, before quickly throwing herself at Rachel and giving her a tight hug. When she draws back, she looks sheepishly around, says a quick goodbye to her mother and then runs off into the living room.
Rachel can only muster up a rather bewildered expression. "What just…?"
"That's just Maya," Anna laughs, rolling her eyes. "Hi, sorry. I'm Anna." She, too, steps forward and moves to hug Rachel. Unlike her daughter, however, she waits for an affirming nod. "I can't believe I'm finally meeting you - Luke has honestly not shut up about you."
"It's nice to meet you, too," Rachel says, hoping her voice doesn't sound too weak.
Anna's phone chimes and she quickly checks it with a frown. "Okay, sorry," she says, "I really have to run. Rachel, we'll get to know each other properly soon, I promise. Shelbs, you're a lifesaver. You have full permission to do whatever you need to do to keep her in line."
"Oh perfect - I'll lock her in the basement until Luke gets home later," Shelby winks. "I've got everything under control. You go, and give Dex a hug from me please."
"Will do," Anna replies as she steps out the door. She raises her voice to add a final, "Bye, Maya! Be good please!"
While Shelby is preoccupied with shutting the door behind her, Rachel attempts to make a hasty escape back up into her room. She only makes it up two steps before her mother places a hand on her back.
"Do you want to come and say hi properly?" she asks.
No.
The slightly pleading look in Shelby's eyes, however, doesn't allow her to answer that. Her mother has done so much for her recently; she owes this her at least.
"Sure."
She follows Shelby into the living room, where Maya is already sprawled out on one of the couches, her eyes glued on the TV.
"What you watching, bug?" Shelby asks, resting a hand on top of the girl's dark hair.
She meets Rachel's eyes and tilts her head towards the other couch. Rachel complies and sits down on the edge of it with her hands tucked under her legs.
"Riverdale," Maya replies, her eyes never leaving the screen.
Shelby follows her gaze and frowns at the shirtless man on the screen. 'Inappropriate?' she mouths at Rachel, who immediately nods.
"How about we put something else on?" she suggests. "We could watch a movie, if you want?"
"Sure," Maya shrugs, clambering up off the couch and walking over to the cabinet under the TV. "I can catch up on this later."
Rachel watches as she opens it and casually flicks through the DVD selection. She'd personally only learned what that cabinet held on Thursday night.
After a quick deliberation, and some gentle prompting on Shelby's part, the opening credits of Tangled soon begin to roll and Maya snuggles herself back down into the couch. Rachel's still perched on the edge of hers. Her eyes keep darting towards the door as half-baked escape plans flitter through her mind.
"What do you want for lunch, bug?" Shelby asks. "I can do mac and cheese, or a sandwich, or soup, maybe?"
Maya scrunches up her face in thought. "Has Uncle Luke left anything?"
From her standing position behind the couch, Shelby leans down to gently swat her head. "I can cook just as well as Uncle Luke!"
"Nuh-uh."
"Yuh-huh," Shelby laughs. "And no, we don't have any Uncle Luke leftovers, so it's my cooking, or nothing."
"Okaaaay," Maya sighs. "I think… um…. mac and cheese, then."
"Coming right up." Shelby turns to Rachel, who's been giving this easy interaction far more attention than the opening of the movie. "Rach, do you want anything else to eat? You didn't have much earlier."
"No thanks," Rachel replies, fighting against the tightness in her throat. She guesses that Shelby's only asking because it would seem rude not to, but she's not hungry anyway.
"You sure?"
"Yeah, I'm sure."
Shelby leaves to go and make the food, and the movie plays out into a room otherwise thick with semi-awkward silence. Rachel can feel Maya's eyes flickering across at her every few seconds with a scrutinising intensity. She keeps her own stare firmly on the screen and tries to force her mind to follow the story.
It's not too hard; Tangled has always been one of her favourites. After one rewatch when she was maybe about eight, she'd decided that, in order to be a magical star, she was going to need blonde hair. Her dads had discovered her in the kitchen an hour or so later squeezing lemon juice into her hair like she'd seen someone on TV doing once. It had been so sticky that it had taken three full shampoos to get it all out.
A small smile tugs at her lips at the memory, but, when her eyes naturally move to look for someone to share in this moment with, she comes up empty. She leans back against the armrest and pulls her legs up to her chest.
Shelby returns a few minutes later with a bowl of steaming pasta.
"Spill any of that and you're cleaning it up yourself," she warns as she carefully hands the bowl over to Maya.
"Maybe you shouldn't be letting me eat it in here then?" the girl grins back.
"Okay," Shelby nods, sitting down next to her. "You go eat in the kitchen by yourself while Rachel and I watch this, then."
Maya pouts and makes a deliberate show of stuffing in a large mouthful. She eats silently for a few minutes but Rachel can still feel her throwing small glances across the room at her.
"Aunt Shelby?" she eventually asks.
"Yeah, bug?"
"If you're Rachel's mom, how come she wasn't here before?"
Rachel's stomach churns; she blames it on the smell of the pasta. Still, her head jerks up to look at her mother. She's looking right back, her mouth slightly agape. For a moment, they hold each other's stare, wide eyes saying everything and nothing all at once.
The clunk of Maya putting her empty bowl down on the coffee table breaks them out of the moment. Shelby shifts and clears her throat a little.
"Well," she starts cautiously, "that's a good question, bug." She pauses for a second and looks between the two girls. "You know how when you were little you used to stay with me and Uncle Luke sometimes? When Mom stayed with Daddy while he was sick?"
"And when Dexter was born," Maya tells her with a nod.
"Yeah, that's right," Shelby agrees. "And when Dexter was born. Because sometimes, bug, even though moms love their kids a lot, they can't always take care of them right then, so they get someone else to do it for a while." She swallows and meets Rachel's eyes. The girl feels a hot blush blooming on her cheeks again and immediately flicks her gaze downwards. "When Rachel was born, even though I loved her a lot, I couldn't take care of her all the time, so she lived with her dads who could do that."
Rachel peers up through her eyelashes at Maya, who's shifted up onto her knees. She can see the girl processing everything that Shelby's said with a thoughtful frown, but even she doesn't look as confused as Rachel feels. It all sounds so simple, so straightforward and natural, when put like that. It belies the peripheral turbulence that's plagued her life.
"You have two dads?" Maya asks after a moment.
It's not the question Rachel was expecting, and the mention of her dads in the present tense makes her heart skip a beat, but she manages a nod. "Um… Yeah."
"That's cool," Maya says. "My friend Lily has two moms…" She pauses and scrunches up her face again. "I have one mom, and I have a daddy, too, but he's in heaven."
Rachel's heart flutters again. "I'm sorry," she says.
"It's okay," the younger girl nods. "I was little so I don't remember him much. But Mom tells us stories about him, and I write him letters sometimes and I know that he's always here." She uses her index finger to point to her chest. It lands on the right-hand side, but Rachel knows what she means.
Her own heart aches for her dads all the time, and yet she's sure it's also the source of their guidance. It's from here that their voices speak to her, trying in vain to drown at the louder ones constantly screaming in her head.
"Bug, why don't you take your plate into the kitchen really quick?" Shelby says. Her eyes dart uneasily over to Rachel. "I'll come help you clean it in a minute."
The girl shrugs, picks up her plate and leaves the room. Once she's gone, Rachel feels her mother's gaze boring into her. After a moment of silence, Shelby stands and moves to sit beside her. Rachel feels her weight sink into the couch and a hand being laid on her shoulder, but all she can really focus on is the physicality of her heart in her chest. It's almost as if she can see it straining against the confines of her rib cage.
"I'm so sorry, Rach," Shelby says quickly. "I didn't know she was going to start talking about that."
"It's okay," Rachel forces out. She also forces her eyes back upwards to meet her mother's. "I… I think I'm going to go lay down for a while."
"Rach-"
"Not just because of that," she clarifies. It's not entirely a lie - she's needed a break and a moment of repose this whole time. Now, she has an excuse. "I'm just a little tired."
Shelby's face crinkles in worry. "Are you okay? Do you feel sick? Wh-"
"I'm fine," Rachel interrupts. "This isn't something we need to… I'm fine. I'm honestly just tired."
Her mother's piercing look of skepticism loses some of its power when her eyes flicker over to the TV. There, the 'Mother Knows Best' sequence has begun. Shelby swallows.
"Okay, honey, if you're sure you're okay," she sighs. "I'll come check on you in a while. I love you." She sends Rachel a gentle smile and kisses her forehead.
Through the fog of a million thoughts reverberating around her head, Rachel returns the smile and leaves.
Grief, guilt and pain toy with time with a callous unpredictability. Sometimes, the world grinds to a halt. Paralysing seconds drag and Rachel feels as though everyone else must have frozen. The world blinks and she sinks in a compressing bubble of breathless exhaustion. Her movements are heavy and exhausting, but she's moving and she's thinking and nobody else is doing anything. But sometimes it's the total opposite; she feels like she stops to take a breath, and everyone else has left her in the dust.
She stops and starts, juddering backwards and forwards through the motions like someone's trying to find the right beginning point on an old video. The rewinds hurt the most.
She's not sure how much she actually sleeps - she feels like she's dreaming most of the time now anyway. At some point, there's a muffled knock on her door, but her eyelids remain tightly sealed. Faces flitter through her mind like she's watching them from the window of a passing train: her dads, her mother, Maya, even.
For some reason, that's the one getting to her the most. She's all youthful ease and jovial familiarity - the ability to talk about a dead parent without feeling like the world is collapsing and time is rupturing.
Rachel's never felt more severed from that. She's fourteen but, with all this stopping and starting, a part of her feels like she's already lived a thousand lives.
She knows for certain that she's already awake the next time she hears movement outside the door. Her fingers are on her face, working to wipe away the tiny traces of tears dribbling out from her still shut eyes.
"Knock, knock," a man's voice calls from the hallway.
Quickly, she blinks a few times, sits up, and makes sure any redness in her eyes can be attributed to semi-conscious bleariness. "Come in," she replies.
Luke gently pushes the door open and steps inside. He leans up against the door and smiles at her. "Morning."
Rachel rolls her eyes and swings herself down off the bed. "You could have actually just knocked, you know."
"Where's the fun in that?" he grins. "Plus, this way you knew it was me."
She uses the motion of pulling a sweatshirt on to collect herself, allowing her face to naturally contort in anguish for just a moment before her head pokes back out into reality.
"Did she send you up to check on me?"
Luke raises his eyebrows. "No comment."
"I'm not mad at her," she tells him, sighing through the guilt bubbling up. She's aware that her erratic behaviour and internal turbulence doesn't just affect her nowadays. "I - I just…"
"I know," he says kindly, and hands her the glass of water he's holding. "Here."
Rachel pushes down the urge to cry as she takes a long sip. She's not sure whether knowing if Shelby had told him to bring it up would make it hurt more or less.
"How was Columbus?" she asks after a moment.
"Boring," he groans. "I had to pick up some papers to grade. But I think I'm going to start training you up so that you can do it for me."
Rachel smirks. "Gotta earn my keep somehow."
"That's right," Luke laughs. "Or, you could earn it by coming to help me cook dinner?" When Rachel looks unsure, he adds, "Come on! It's taco night - it'll be fun, I promise."
0
Though she can occasionally feel his wary eyes watching her, Luke grants Rachel's request to be in charge of chopping vegetables. Her daddy had always told her that knife skills were the most impressive thing to master in the kitchen. He used to place one hand over her own as they chopped together. She can feel its absence now, but there's a tiny part of her that hopes he would be impressed if he could see how efficiently she's de-pithing the bell peppers.
And she's proud of herself for even acknowledging that.
"Looking good," Luke nods at her as he passes to collect some paprika for the tofu marinade.
She smiles shyly back at him. "Thanks."
She still can't quite bring herself to elaborate, to tell him how she learned these skills, but she appreciates it all the same. Again, she wonders whether she'll ever reach that point; it still feels like such a far-off goal. And like there's a million mountains to climb or tightropes to traverse before she gets there.
"Luke?" she says.
"Mmm?"
She takes a deep breath and fixes her stare on her cutting board. "Um… Had she… Did- did you know about me before all of this?"
Even without looking up, Rachel can hear him stilling his movements. Then, he moves to stand next to her at the countertop. "Yeah, I did," he replies carefully. "Shelby told me about you pretty early on."
"Oh."
Rachel's not sure whether that's what she wanted to hear, or not. Maybe Shelby was more like Maya - maybe it was easy for her to talk about everything.
"She didn't… It wasn't in a casual way, Rach," Luke explains, almost as if he can read her mind. "But, yes. We'd spoken about you."
"Okay," she says. She lines her knife up with the pepper, but her hands have begun to shake and the slices she produces are slightly uneven. "So… do you think it…? Did she… miss me?" she completes in a whisper, her cheeks flushing.
"Rachel," Luke says, so emphatically that she can't help but to look up at him, "I know she missed you everyday."
"R-really?"
"Really," he confirms. He smiles sadly at her. "That kind of thing, any pain of that magnitude, it never leaves you, I don't think. You just," he pauses and tilts his head in thought, "you just learn to cope with it. It takes time, and adjustment, but you do."
There's a look in his eyes that tells Rachel he knows what happened before with Maya. But she can't get into that now. She can't because she's already pressing down too many feelings inside of her, so, instead, she forces a slight smile and nods. She doesn't have to reach as far to pull the smile out as she sometimes does.
There are some things she knows she won't ever be able to speak about, but if her mother could live through and with grief and guilt, maybe she can too.
"Hey," Shelby says a few minutes later when she enters the kitchen. She walks over to the counter where Rachel is now slicing tomatoes and leans against it next to her. Rachel shoots her a mock-glare when she steals some tomato off the board. "Don't look at me like that while you're holding a knife."
"Don't steal my ingredients, then."
Shelby sticks her tongue out and quickly grabs another slice of tomato. "How are you feeling, baby?" she asks.
Rachel's hit with another wave of emotion; it's love and guilt and gratitude all at once. She can't quite make sense of it, but she leans into her mother's side a little. Shelby stills for a moment in what Rachel assumes must be surprise - she never usually initiates contact, - but returns the gesture by wrapping an arm around the girl and kissing the side of her head.
"I feel better," Rachel nods. "I slept for a while."
"I know," Shelby says. "I came to check on you."
"Thanks," Rachel smiles shyly.
Clattering footsteps sound as Maya bursts into the kitchen and runs up to Luke by the stove.
"Uncle Luke, look!" she squeals, thrusting a colourful sheet of paper into his chest.
"Oh, that's so pretty, bug," he says. He holds it up to the lights and tilts is from side-to-side, frowning slightly. "I love it. It's so… What is it?"
Maya gives an exasperated sigh. "It's me and you and Aunt Shelby and Rachel and Mom and Dex."
Rachel looks up when she hears her name, a small smile crossing her lips at her inclusion. Shelby grins back at her and winks.
"Um- I don't think Dexter's arm is actually hanging off, bug," Luke says. He squints down at the drawing and Shelby clears her throat pointedly. Quickly, he plasters on a smile and pulls his niece into a tight hug. "But I love it a lot. Thank you."
Rachel returns to her chopping when Shelby moves to pin the drawing up on the fridge. The tiny grin won't leave her face.
"What's that smell?" Shelby asks a moment later.
For a second, they all peer around the kitchen in confusion, sniffing deeply, until Luke turns back to the stove where there's a suspicious cloud of smoke rising up from the sizzling vegetables.
"Oh, fu-dge," he says, glaring at Shelby when she swats his arm. He lifts the pan off the heat and then points towards the door. "Okay, bug, Shelbs, both of you out."
"What did we do?" Shelby asks, mouth agape in offence.
"You're distracting us," Luke replies. He turns to Rachel for support and she shrugs back at her mother.
"Fine," the woman pouts. "Come on, bug. We know when we're not wanted."
Luke has Rachel chop the lettuce next. He's talking to her about places he wants to take her in Columbus at some point and shows he knows are going to be touring there over the next few months. She lets her knife slice through the leaves and her insecurities. When she's here, in the midst of such normality, it feels okay to let herself make plans.
When the food is almost ready, she heads down into the basement to let her mother and Maya know. She lingers outside the door to the music room for a moment.
She hasn't been inside there much since her first day here, and she can hear laughing and the tinkling of piano keys. Doing her best to leave memories of playing piano for her dads out in the hallway, she knocks and slips inside the room.
Shelby's sitting on the stool and has Maya on her lap, her arms wrapped around her sides so that she can reach the piano. They both look up at Rachel.
"Dinner's going to be ready in a minute," she tells them. After receiving a nod, she turns to leave, but stops when Maya calls her name.
"Can you play piano too?" the girl asks.
"Uh…" Rachel hesitates. She's not sure whether she's in much of a piano playing mood, and she doesn't want to act as some kind of dark cloud ruining the moment. "Not much."
Shelby shakes her head. "Yeah, you can. You were great when we played before!"
"Oh… I…" Rachel starts, blushing once more. Her protests fall on small, deaf ears; Maya has already leapt up, crossed over to her, and began to drag her over to the instrument.
"Do you know any Disney?" she asks with wide eyes.
"Oh- well, just a bit," Rachel replies.
She shrugs at Shelby who shuffles off the stool so that she can sit. She takes a breath and allows herself to fall into the role of the performer - it's one she knows well, and now she actually has a reason to inhabit it. And, judging by the look on Maya's face, she also has a willing audience.
She grins. "You want me to sing too?"
Luke's head pops around the door just as her mini rendition of 'Part of Your World' finishes. Maya immediately claps and then runs over to tell Luke all about it. Rachel sits back on the stool, a tiny frown appearing on her face; when she'd started to play, she hadn't realised just how fitting the song would be. She's not sure she would trade her voice, but she would definitely trade something for the chance to belong.
A hand on her shoulder grounds her back in reality, and she looks up to see Shelby smiling down at her, eyes glistening.
"You really are incredible, Rach."
Rachel ducks her head, but manages a smile back. "Thanks."
She allows her mother to help her up so that they can follow Luke and Maya back upstairs to eat.
"You said you used to take piano lessons, right?" Shelby asks as they climb the stairs. Rachel nods. "Would you ever want to do that again?"
"You'd let me?"
"Of course," Shelby nods. "We'd have to fit it in around VA rehearsals, but if it's something you're interested in…?"
Rachel nods happily, before thinking for a moment. She would like to continue piano but… "Shelby?"
"Yeah?"
"Do you think… Maybe um, instead of piano, could I maybe go back to taking dance classes instead?" she rushes out before she can overthink it.
"Dance classes?" Shelby asks. They come to a stop at the door into the kitchen. "Sure, I mean you can do both if you want? Did you take those before too?"
"Yeah, and I still did when I lived with Grandma for a while…" She pauses. "But, well, they were kind of expensive and I wasn't allowed most of the money my dads… The money that they left for me. B-but you have it now, right? So I can use it? Just for dance classes and-"
"Woah, Rach, wait," Shelby interrupts, laying a hand on the girl's shoulder. "I'm not going to ask you to pay for your own dance classes, or piano lessons, or whatever. If there's something like that which you're interested in, then I'll pay for it."
"Bu-"
"Rachel," she says firmly. "I'm your mom. I want to encourage the things you're passionate about. Let me take care of it."
And Rachel can't argue with the tone of loving insistence, so she just nods gratefully. "Thank you."
Shelby squeezes her shoulder fondly. "You're very welcome."
000
Later that evening, Shelby's leaning up against the doorframe in the guest room, watching as Luke finishes tucking Maya into bed. Anna had called earlier to say that they were still waiting at the hospital and they'd both assured her that Maya was perfectly okay to stay overnight.
The smile playing on her lips doesn't make it all the way up to her eyes. Maya takes all of Luke's goodnight wishes easily and tugs her pink blanket up to rest under her chin; she'd done the same with Shelby just a moment ago, too. It's a marked difference from the way Rachel had seemed almost embarrassed to be kissed on the head and instructed to have sweet dreams when she'd headed to bed a few minutes earlier.
She turns away from the idyllic scene before her with a sigh and heads back to her bedroom. As always these days, her steps are heavy with a muted ache: it's regret and frustration that gnaws through her all the way to the bone. Still, she reminds herself as she begins to get ready for bed, she'll keep going and eventually things will figure themselves out.
One day, Rachel won't think twice about asking her to pay for dance classes. The subject of her dads won't trigger feelings so insurmountable that they provoke some kind of mid-afternoon swooning fit. Singing at the piano or impromptu hugs will be routine - they won't feel like gasps of air sucked in through drowning lungs.
She's silently repeating these assurances to herself as she brushes her teeth when Luke comes into the bathroom. He envelopes her in a hug from behind and their eyes meet in the mirror's reflection.
"We have a sleepy bug tonight," he says, resting his head down on her shoulder. "But she did manage to tell me that you have to make her pancakes tomorrow morning."
Shelby scoffs. "Oh so now my cooking's good enough for her. Earlier it was all, 'Where are the Uncle Luke leftovers?'"
"Can you blame her? My cooking is great." She pulls a face at him in the mirror. "But you know she's always had a soft spot for your attempts at cooking."
"I'll show you 'attempts at'," Shelby growls, lifting her leg to kick his shin. Once she's finished rinsing her mouth out, however, she turns and pecks his lips. "You're so good with her. And with Rachel, actually. Thank you for getting her out of her room earlier."
"She didn't take that much convincing, honestly."
Guilt throbs all over her body. "It was more than I could do."
"Shelbs-"
She quickly shakes her head. "Do you want to watch a movie, or something?"
"Uh- sure," he says. She ignores how he frowns at her change of subject.
"Perfect. You get ready, I'm going to go look in on Rach. I'll check Maya's actually still in bed, too."
"Okay," he replies, reaching for his toothbrush. She nods and goes to leave the room, stopping when he grabs her hand. "Don't overthink this. You're doing great and I love you."
"Luke," she sighs.
He shrugs and raises his eyebrows. "You know I don't lie, and remember - everything I know about this, I learned from you."
She allows herself a tiny smile. "You don't lie anymore," she corrects, before leaving the room and heading towards her daughter's bedroom.
As she creaks open the door and watches Rachel breathing deeply under the covers, she works to remind herself of the veracity of his words.
July 2013, Columbus.
Shelby's lying upside down on the couch in her brother's living room, her back against the seat and her legs hooked over the top. There's an ice pack tucked into the back of her denim shorts and a heated pad tucked in the front. She's not sure which of these, if either, is doing anything to ease the stabbing cramps engulfing her lower stomach, but she can't see the harm in taking her chances either way.
She glances at the digital clock on the DVD player; the uncompromising red lights tell her that only two minutes have passed since the last time she checked. It's still not long enough for her latest round of painkillers to have fully taken effect. Fighting to repress a grunt of annoyance, she instead forces her attention back onto the TV. Some documentary about the evolutionary development of sharks is playing but even with the subtitles on, she's struggling to follow. It's not just the pain that's bothering her.
She's also bored.
Like incredibly, really, truly bored.
Her brother and his wife left for their twilight shifts at the hospital a little while ago. They've been working them all week and so, most days, Shelby has found herself aimlessly wandering the apartment, trying to make as little noise as possible so as not to disturb their sleep. The majority of her evenings have been spent in a similar vein to this one - staring at the TV and trying not to let herself think too much about her current predicament. But she's had enough of it.
New York, for all its faults, had been a whirlwind. Events there cascaded into each other like falling dominos, and, for better or for worse, she feels like her feet haven't properly touched the ground for years. At first, spending the summer months in her brother's guest room in the Columbus suburbs felt like a promise of fresh air. After just a week in the attic conversion, she's feeling more stifled than ever.
When the presenter of the documentary begins to discuss the intricacies in the bone structure of hammerhead sharks' faces, she immediately reaches under her head for her phone. There's got to be more to life than this. She scrolls through her contacts, trying to decide who she can call this time; in the past week, she's taken to playing catch up with friends she hasn't spoken to properly for years. None of them need to know that she's grasping at straws to remind herself what human connection feels like.
As it's done several times already this week, her thumb hesitantly lingers over the newest contact in her address book. After he'd put it in, she'd smiled placidly, thinking that she would probably never use it. Desperation, however, has reared its ugly head.
Or that, at least, is what she tells herself.
iMessage
Thursday, 12th July
6:48 p.m.
Shelby: Hi- it's Shelby from… Well, from all the places. You can totally say no, but if you're not doing anything tonight, do you maybe want to watch a movie or something?
She almost adds that she has a free house, but stops herself from full descent into the emotional state of a high schooler with a crush. The Shelby who can bend men to her will like moths to a flame apparently decided to stay in New York. Before she can even replace the device back under her head and return her focus to the shark historians, it starts to vibrate with an incoming call.
Her jaw locks in a grimace. Anyone who returns an opening text with a phone call is not someone she's going to get on with. She places it on her chest and allows the call to ring out.
Not even a minute passes before her phone vibrates again. She lowers her chin to her chest and gives it a withering stare. Really? She'd thought he'd seemed pretty normal. But, then again, when have her assessments of men ever been one of her more trustworthy skills?
Still, she can't quite bring herself to ignore it a second time. She should just check that he's okay, right?
"Hello?"
Her ear is immediately overwhelmed by the sound of a child's screams and, flinching for more reasons than one, she jerks the phone away from her head a little. There's some scuffling, another piercing shriek and a male voice trying to speak calmly.
"Hi?" she tries again, figuring that maybe it's more butt dial than booty call. "Luke?"
After another bout of white noise, his breathless voice comes back over the speaker to her, "Shelby? Hi. Thanks for picking up - I know it's really weird for me to be calling."
A small smile plays on her lips; she knew her judgement couldn't have been that off.
"Most especially when you seem to be right in the middle of your nightly child torture session."
"Yeah, exactl- Bug, no - no, you can't eat that," he says despondently. "Sorry. Hey, do you happen to know anything about kids?"
"Not much about causing them extreme pain."
"Har har," he deadpans. "But about general caretaking?"
"Sure," she says, swinging her legs down and pushing herself up so that she's lying against the arm rest. "I know a little. What's going on?"
"My niece," Luke replies quickly. "My brother wasn't feeling good so Anna wanted to stay at the hospital with him and she asked whether I could watch her. And I thought, 'Sure? How hard can it be to watch a toddler for the evening?' Yeah, turns out it's pretty fucking hard."
"Okay, well lesson number one is don't say 'fuck' in front of them," Shelby says, wincing a little when the girl begins to howl again. "And lesson number two is stop whatever it is that you're doing because she doesn't seem to be enjoying it too much."
"Oh- so I just let her eat the plastic car, do I?" he counters. "Sorry- hang on. Bug, this is not food. I made you food and you didn't want to eat it. You can't eat that."
Shelby smirks at the slightly high-pitched voice he's putting on. She stands from the couch and pulls out both relief packs from her shorts. "Would you like some help, Luke?" she asks in her most condescending voice.
"I will literally pay you for it."
"Oh, sure," she laughs, "I'll send my rates over now."
"Are they competitive?"
"Eh- more on the luxury side of things."
"Whatever- I'll take it," he says before, once again, attempting to soothe the girl in soft tones.
Shelby squeezes her phone between her shoulder and cheek while she leans down to put her shoes on. "Text me your address and I'll be right over."
"You're an angel."
"I know." She grabs the spare key off the hook and steps out onto the porch, locking the door behind her. "Oh- and Luke?"
"Mm?"
"How old is she?" she asks as she walks down the front path towards the rack where her brother's old bike is standing.
"She just turned two."
The whole way over, Shelby has been debating whether this is a good idea. There's an ache in her gut that's wholly different from the cramps; it started when the flood of memories knocked her down at those words, pounding her on all sides with regret and insecurity and sadness. But, when the door of the third-floor apartment swings open to reveal Luke holding a screaming baby around her middle in one hand, and a rag up to his bleeding nose in the other, she knows she's made the right call.
"Oh, dear God."
"Shelby, thank fuck," Luke mutters, his voice thick from the hand clamped over his nose. "Come in."
She shakes her head as she follows him inside the apartment, her eyes instantly widening at the sight that befalls her. Various plastic and soft toys, pink blankets, and sippy cups are strewn all over the living room. From the doorway, she can just about see through to the small kitchen where most of the floor is covered in some kind of red sauce. Or, she glances again at Luke, maybe it's blood.
"I see you've forgotten lesson one already," she says, raising an eyebrow. "Although somehow I don't think that's our biggest problem."
"Me, either," he agrees. "I tried to take the car off her and she hit me right in the face with it. Accidentally, I think. Actually- I don't even know. Can you-?"
He holds the girl out to her, and, instinctively, Shelby grasps a hold of her and shifts her in her arms until she's sat on her hip. She feels her breath catch in her throat at the familiar placement of weight. While one hand subconsciously begins to rub soothing circles on the toddler's back, her hips create a rocking rhythm up and down. Her body is doing what it remembers; her brain is screaming that this is the first baby she's held since she was nineteen. It's something she's been actively avoiding for nearly six years.
Feeling Luke's eyes on her, she forces a reassuring smile up at him. "I got her. You go fix your face."
"An angel," he repeats, blowing her a kiss as he goes to dart out of the room. "Be right back, bug!"
She swallows and looks down at the small girl. She's all cheeks flushed from screaming and dark hair and big, brown eyes. But she's not Rachel, Shelby reminds herself. She's…
"Wait- Luke!" she calls out. "What's her name?"
But the door to what she can only presume is the bathroom has already shut behind him - she's alone with a crying baby. Alone - so why does she feel so self-conscious?
Shelby takes a deep breath, blows it out through pursed lips, and pulls herself together. She can do this. It's nothing more than watching a toddler for a few minutes. She pushes the front door closed and draws the bolt across, all while maintaining her bobbing rhythm.
"Shh, it's okay," she soothes, leaning her face down to the little girl's. "You're okay, sweetheart."
"Unc'Uke?" the girl whimpers. Her bottom lip trembles as she looks up at Shelby with big, watery eyes.
"It's okay," Shelby tells her with a soft smile. "Uncle Luke's got a boo boo on his nose so he's gone to fix it."
"O-owie?"
"Yeah, a little bit," she says, melting at the girl's concerned expression. "He'll be right back, okay?" The girl clings to her a little tighter and Shelby responds by rubbing her back again. "My name's Shelby. Can you tell me your name?"
The girl shakes her head, short, dark hair rubbing into Shelby's t-shirt. "'U-uke," she grizzles again.
"I know, sweetheart," Shelby says. "He's coming right back, I promise. But how about you and I do something fun while we wait for him?"
"Owie," she repeats firmly. This time, there's no question behind it.
"Are you hurt?" Shelby asks. When she receives a small nod and another whimper, she puckers her bottom lip in sympathy. "Can you show me where your owie is?"
The girl looks at her curiously for a moment before shaking her head. "I w-want Mama."
"I know," Shelby replies softly, trying to ignore the sharp tug on her heart. "Mama's gone to see your daddy, but she'll be back soon."
"Mama," the girl sobs.
Sensing that another meltdown is looming on the horizon, Shelby changes tactics. She lowers the girl to her feet and kneels down in front of her.
"Hey, uh-" What had Luke called her? "Hey, bug?" she tries, smiling when the girl looks back at her. "You know what? Mama told me exactly how to fix your owies." The girl frowns in suspicion. "Can you show me where your owie is so I can fix it?"
The girl continues to look unsure for a moment, but eventually hovers one hand over her crotch and whispers, "Owie here."
Shelby's eyes widen in alarm and her head swings towards the still-closed door of the bathroom. Surely Luke wouldn't have… Couldn't have… Why would he ask her to come over here if he…? Maybe it's not what she's thinking. Maybe he just swatted her butt, or something? Still, she can't help but wish she hadn't been so hasty in bolting the front door shut.
She turns back to the girl with as soft a face as she can muster. "Can you show me, bug? I promise to make the owie go away."
The girl nods and takes Shelby's hand, tugging her across to the kitchen. Shelby takes in the stained floor, pots and pans covering the countertops and the tomato pasta littering the small dining table. She's brought, however, over to one of the clearer spaces of table where the girl points at a pink diaper bag.
"Owie," she repeats.
"Okay, sweetheart. Can I get you changed so I can have a look?"
Receiving another small nod, Shelby lays what she hopes is a clean dish towel down on the table, lifts the toddler up onto it and guides her down. She makes quick work of unbuttoning the spotted romper and, when she pulls it off, lets out a huge sigh of relief.
Luke's not a pedophile. He's not even someone who lost his temper with a just-turned-two-year-old. He's simply an idiot.
Shelby soothes the little girl as she removes the backwards, twisted-up diaper from around her legs and rubs away the marks left by the adhesive tabs on her skin. Getting the confirmation that the "Owie all gone," she puts a fresh diaper on the girl, and throws the tangled one into the trash can alongside her half-constructed escape plans. She's not sure how fast she could have biked away while balancing a toddler on her lap, anyway. Then, she changes her into the clean pajamas from the diaper bag. These have the advantage of not being decorated by tiny spatters of Luke's blood.
Her next port of call is to distract the girl from wailing for her mother or uncle. She finds her solution in the toy cars scattered over the living room floor. The girl takes great pleasure in identifying the varying colours for Shelby. The woman digs her fingernails into her bare calfs until she forgets that Rachel used to do the same thing with the keys on her xylophone.
"And what colour is this one, bug?"
"B'ue!"
"You are so smart!" Shelby praises, holding up her hand for yet another high-five.
"And who," a voice calls from the other side of the room, "is the very best uncle in the whole wide world who got you these cars?"
"'Uke!" the girl shouts excitedly. With an assisting hand from Shelby, she clambers to her feet and scuttles across the room, reaching her arms up to Luke. He obliges and lifts her easily, but pulls her exploring hands away from the strands of red tissue peeking out of his nose.
"Hey, bug," he smiles. "You feeling a bit better now? Did Shelby take good care of you?"
"Shebby fix owie," the girl tells him, pointing back at the woman.
"You got hurt?" Luke looks over to Shelby with a frown of concern. "What happened, bug?"
"Not my fault," Shelby says dryly, raising her hands in defence. She fixes him with a pointed look. "Kind of the exact opposite of my fault."
"Me?" he asks. "What did I do?"
She waits until he sits on the floor opposite her with the girl in his lap before she quirks an eyebrow. "Not very experienced with putting on diapers, are you?"
"Huh?"
"Oh, fuck," is his muttered reaction to her explanation of everything that went down while he was in bathroom. Dark eyes shining with guilt look up at the girl who is now contently rolling a car over the rug.
"Yeah," Shelby agrees in a similarly low-tone. "That was pretty much my exact thought when I thought you were a sick-in-the-head baby predator, too."
"What?" he laughs, mouth agape.
"Well she told me she had an owie here -" she gestures to her own crotch "- so you weren't exactly looking like uncle of the year."
"Oh my God… No…" Luke shakes his head. "No, I-"
"Relax," she says, rolling her eyes. "Turns out you're not evil, you're just a little bit stupid. Congratulations." His slight pout only encourages her. "Didn't you say you just finished grad school at Columbia? So, you can get an Ivy League master's degree, but you can't put a diaper on your niece? That's actually kind of impressive… Oh- and by the way, she wouldn't tell me her name."
"Oh, sorry," Luke says, ignoring her goading. "It's Maya. She gets a little shy sometimes - was she okay?"
"She was fine," she assures him, before grinning slyly again. "We really bonded over how dumb you were while I fixed her diaper and got her out of the bloodstained clothes."
"Thank you. I told you I have no fucking clue what I'm doing."
"Funnily enough, I don't doubt it." She moves her gaze away from Maya's game and peers at him, smirking at the scraps of tissue and congealed blood still hanging around his nostrils. "Do I need to fix your owie too?"
"It's fine," Luke says, pinching the tissue a little further up his nose. "I just about got it to stop."
"By plugging it?" She shakes her head at him. "You do know that the best way to stop a nosebleed is to just pinch it, right?" When he shoots her a bewildered look, she rocks up onto her knees and leans forward to take his chin in one hand. With the other, she gently eases the reddened clumps of paper out and presses them into his palm. Then, she licks her thumb and uses it to wipe away any remaining blood. "There. Sorry, I just couldn't take you seriously looking like that. You're fine once the blood's clotted, and now you look a little less like Frankenstein."
"Frankenstein's monster," he corrects, scrunching his nose up in a way that distinctly reminds her of a hamster.
She narrows her eyes at him, but shrugs her defeat on this one. "Whatever. Dracula, then. Bram Stoker's monster. Boom." She returns his rather impressed nod with a dramatic hair-flip. "Yeah - that's right. I can read, too. And, I can even change a diaper."
She probably could have been more subtle about things. She plays with Maya while Luke attempts to clean up the mess in his kitchen. Apparently, the girl hadn't been too impressed with his attempts at making penne alla vodka. Lesson number three, she soon teaches him, is not to serve toddlers dishes made using alcohol, even if it's supposed to have burned off. Shelby uses the leftover plain noodles to make Maya a quick dinner - pasta with a teaspoon of butter and some creamed corn she finds in the back of a cupboard. She advises that he warms up her bedtime bottle of milk, and sings softly to her until her eyes flutter closed in her travel crib. Then, she leaves Luke to say his goodnights.
She's doing the dishes in the sink when he reenters the kitchen.
"Thank you," he says, grabbing a dish towel and starting to dry the pots she's already cleaned. "But you really don't have to. Cleaning is actually within my realm of capabilities."
"I'll take your word for it."
She senses it's coming before the words even leave his mouth. Maybe it's from the questioning look in his eye that's been there for a while now, or maybe it's how he's watching her expertly clean inside the spout of Maya's sippy cup.
"You know a lot about kids," he says, and, despite her premonition, her heart skips a beat. "Did you do a lot of babysitting when you were younger?"
Shelby rinses off the last cup and places it upside down on the draining rack. "Something like that."
She can feel him watching her as she takes the towel out of his hands and dries her own off. She hangs it over the rail on the oven and takes a moment to bite down hard on her lip. There's a million feelings storming in her stomach and she can't quite believe that she's overcome them long enough to help take care of a baby - to maintain some kind of easy conversation with a man she barely knows.
The second part shouldn't come as a surprise; she's always been a little too good at that. It's really how she's spent so many years running from everything. She piled everything that she didn't want to think about into a closet in the back of her mind and slammed the door shut before it could all spill back out.
But now her body's caught up with itself and she's paying the price for it. It's only a matter of time before her mind does the same.
"Um… Shelby?" Luke says quietly. "Are you okay?"
She quickly blinks the tears out of her eyes and turns back to face him with a smile. "I'm fine," she says brightly. "Totally fine. Sorry."
She can tell that he doesn't believe her; his dark eyebrows are furrowed and his thoughtful gaze is boring into her. It's not in an aggressive way, though. That's what makes it so much harder to brush off.
And it's not like she's really going to see him again. After her surgery, she'll recover at Taylor's and then head back to the city, or maybe somewhere completely new. She isn't sure of much yet, but she knows she's not going to stay here.
"I had a daughter," she tells him. Her voice is surprisingly strong, but it doesn't even feel like it's hers.
Luke's face falls. "Oh, God. Shelby, I'm so sorry."
"What?" She tilts her head in confusion until she finally catches on to his mistake. "Oh- no, no. Not like that. She's not- she's not dead. God, no. I just… I don't see her. Anymore. She was adopted, and… Yeah."
"Oh, thank God," he's muttered at some point in her stuttered rambling, one hand clapping against his chest. When she's done, he reaches out and gently squeezes her arm. "Well, I'm still sorry."
"Yeah. I am, too," Shelby sighs. Her eyes fall to where their bodies are joined. He's so close to her that she can smell his aftershave and see the tiny freckles on his cheeks. For the first time in a long time, this kind of proximity tingles in her stomach. And she doesn't like that. "Maybe I should get going?"
"Uh, sure," he says, quickly pulling his hand away like he'd almost forgotten it was there. "If you want to. Or…"
"Or?" she finds herself asking.
"Or, I could order us some food and we could watch that movie?"
When the pizza arrives, they take it out onto the terrace with a few bottles of beer and the baby monitor. They sit on the floor, backs up against the sliding doors, and he describes his master's thesis about Marxist influences on postcolonial identities to her. When he asks what she does, she tells him that she's a failed actress. It's only once the words are out of her mouth that she realises she won't be going back to New York.
After they've eaten, he produces a packet of cigarettes and a lighter from his pocket and presses a finger to his lips. "Don't tell Maya." With a roll of her eyes, she mirrors the gesture. He smirks and extends the box to her. "Want one?"
She won't be singing properly for a while, if ever again, and so she shrugs and helps herself.
"Don't judge," Luke says as he blows out a long stream of smoke. It hangs around them in the thick evening air. "It's the last thing left on my list to cut out."
"Oh, yeah?" she asks, leaning over to tap some ash off on the metal railing. "What was the first?"
Luke's silent for a moment, not immediately replying until she turns back to face him. "Methamphetamine."
She snorts and lets out a loud laugh. When Luke only matches this with a raised eyebrow, her jaw drops. "Oh- fuck. Shit - Luke, I… Sorry, I thought you were kidding."
"I wish," he replies dryly.
"Wow… Fuck…I'm sorry - I…"
"It's okay," he says after she fails to string anything more coherent together. "You don't have to say anything. Sorry… What can you say about a meth problem, right? But I don't lie… Anymore. Not after… And I just thought- well, you told me about your daughter…"
"Right," Shelby says, meeting his eye with a nod. "No, I get it. An eye for an eye."
He smirks. "I mean that's not really the Biblical context, but sure. An eye for an eye."
In a month, once he's become her self-appointed physical therapist, they'll stop for a break during their run by the river. They'll discover they attended the same Upstate rehab facility and he'll tell her that he's starting to believe in fate. She'll scoff and continue to mock him about this for the rest of the day. Inside, she'll start to believe it too.
Because Luke hasn't got around to setting up his wifi yet, that night they watch the only movie he has saved on his laptop, The Jungle Book. Shelby complains about the continuity errors in animation while he spouts out trivia about the film's production and source material. When she points out how annoying that is, he sends her a pointed look.
"It's equally annoying when you complain about everything that's happening onscreen."
She mock-glares at him. "An eye for an eye?"
"Deal."
After the end-credits roll and he assures her that he'll be able to handle Maya if she wakes up before her mom arrives to collect her, he walks the short distance over to the door with her.
"You're going to be cold biking home like that," he says casually, fixing the hallway with an evaluating look as though it could tell him anything about the weather.
"I think I'll survive."
As she goes to unbolt the door, his question tumbles out, "In a purely platonic way, you can stay over if you want?"
"'Purely platonic?'" she smirks, stilling her motions.
She swears he blushes a little. "Semi-platonic?"
"Luke, I…"
She looks up at him and, for a moment, she knows exactly how this could go down. She'd stay the night, with all that that entails. Within three days, most of her things would be inside the apartment. They'd take walks around the neighbourhood and spend way too much money on takeout that would mainly go cold in the bag. They'd have too much sex and blow off any and all responsibilities. They'd form an unhealthy attachment to each other and a specific type of drug, and ignore everything else. Eventually someone - probably him, - would want to have the conversation about 'what they are' and 'what they're doing'. She'd start a petty argument as an excuse to leave. That would be that and the whole thing would be chalked up to a month-long fever dream.
But he's in town to support his dying brother and she's there for a subtotal hysterectomy. Besides, she's lived out that pattern one too many times; she's not sure whether she has the strength to do it again.
"I should go," she says eventually, smiling a little at the way he deflates, but tries to conceal it. "But maybe we can hang out again sometime?"
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. I think I'd like to."
Present
After checking that Maya is also sleeping soundly, Shelby heads back to the bedroom. Luke's sat up against the headboard with her laptop open.
"Okay," he says, patting the spot next to him on the bed so that she can climb up next to him. "We're watching The Wicker Man because we haven't done Nicolas Cage trivia for a while, and there's plenty for you to complain about."
"Perfect," she replies. She smirks as she curls up into his body. "Lots of eyes for lots of eyes."
"All of the eyes." He leans over to dim the lamp on the end table and then wraps an arm tightly around her. "Ready?"
"Ready," she confirms, before lifting her head to kiss him deeply. "I really love you."
He grins down at her. "I really love you, too."
000
Rachel's whole body is burning with the strain of keeping her hands locked around the tightrope. The friction of it is rubbing her palms raw, but she's hoping with every fibre of her being that, if she can maintain her grip for just a moment longer, her mother will eventually stop looking at her with that venomous glare and lean down to help her up.
"Mommy!" she tries desperately. "Please, Mommy, I'm sorry! I didn't mean to!"
Her pleas are useless. Shelby shakes her head coldly and turns to walk away. Rachel's not sure which hurts more: the pain ripping through all of her muscles, or the scorching feeling of her heart crumbling in her chest. She's doing everything she can to hold on, to swing herself up onto the safety of the pedestal, but then Shelby lifts her foot, stamps it hard onto the ground, and Rachel tumbles down into nothingness with a loud bang.
She jolts upright in bed with trickles of sweat pouring down her forehead and her whole body shaking. Instinctively, she checks over her palms for signs of rope burn, but the only marks there and small indentations from where her fingernails have clenched into her skin.
Swallowing through the painful dryness in her mouth and throat, she reaches across to her nightstand to find her water glass. As soon as she lifts it, she can immediately tell that it's empty, and, sighing, she slowly drags herself from her bed to go and fill it up.
"It's just a dream," she murmurs to herself as she pads down the hallway to the bathroom. "It's just a dream, it's just a dream, it's just a dream."
For now, every horrible thought in the back of her head screams at her.
She ignores it, uses the bathroom and fills her glass. She keeps her eyes fixed on the sink to avoid catching a glimpse of her gaunt reflection; she'll deal with the physical signs of her exhaustion in the morning.
It's when she's on her way back to her bedroom, that, over her continued muttering, she hears a soft whimper coming from the guest room at the end of the hallway. She stops for a moment, deliberating over her options. All she really wants to do is return to the safety of her bed, pull the covers all the way over herself and try to sleep again. When she hears another tiny cry, however, she finds herself passing the door to her room.
She presses her ear up against the wood of the guest room door and gently pushes it open.
"Maya?" she whispers into the darkness. She blinks a few times to allow her eyes to adjust. From the streetlight peeking in through the gaps in the curtains, she can just about make out a tiny figure curled up on the floor. "Maya, what's wrong?"
The little girl turns to her and Rachel can spot the wetness shining in her eyes. Throwing a quick glance back over her shoulder, she steps properly into the bedroom, shuts the door behind her and flicks on the light switch.
Maya has her knees pulled up to her chest and is clutching at her left elbow. Her bottom lip trembles as she looks back up at Rachel.
"I fell and got hurt," she whimpers, twisting her arm around so that Rachel can see the graze there.
"What happened?" Rachel repeats. She walks over to the girl and kneels down in front of her. "Do you want me to go get Luke for you?" She swallows. "Or Shelby?"
Maya shakes her head adamantly. "No! Don't tell! I couldn't sleep so I was practicing for dance class and I fell, but don't tell."
"Okay, okay," Rachel says quickly before she can get even more worked up. "I won't tell, I promise."
Maya sends her a small, watery smile before sniffling again. "Rachel, it hurts."
"Can I?" the older girl asks, taking a hold of her arm.
She frowns as she looks down at the injury; it doesn't appear too big or worrying, but she can attest to how sore friction wounds can be. Kind of. She wracks her brain for any first aid skills she has and tries to give Maya a reassuring look. She's never been particularly good with kids, but, like always, she'll do her best at performing a new role.
"It's okay," she says when Maya sniffles again. "Um… I think there's a first aid kit in the bathroom? Stay here, okay? I'll be right back."
She pads back along the hallway as quietly as she can; she's not exactly sure whether she's doing the right thing in not going to get Luke or Shelby, and she really doesn't want to make either of them mad if they wake up. Keeping one eye on the door to the bathroom as she searches, she finds the plastic box with relative ease, and, as soon as she's back in the guest room with it, she lets out a little sigh of relief.
"Okay," she says, putting on her best 'it's all going to be fine voice', "I think we just need to clean it and put a band-aid on."
"They hurt worse," Maya says, eyeing the antiseptic wipes suspiciously.
"I know," Rachel sympathises, "but we just need to clean it really quick." She pulls one out and has Maya lay her arm out. "Super quick, I promise."
Maya hisses when it makes contact with her raw skin, but relaxes a little when Rachel starts to hum a soft tune. "You're good at singing like Aunt Shelby."
Rachel does her best not to flinch too. "Oh, thank you."
"Rachel?"
"Yeah?"
"Why don't you call Aunt Shelby 'Mom'?" Maya asks. When Rachel pulls away, she twists her arm again to inspect the newly-cleaned spot.
Rachel bites down on her lip. "Um," she falters and Maya looks back up at her curiously. "Well," she says, taking a deep breath, "I suppose it's because I haven't really known her for that long and… I mean, I do sometimes, but this is all still rather new for me."
"Because you were living with your two dads before," Maya says with an understanding nod.
"Yeah, that's right," Rachel replies. She focuses on pulling the plastic wrapping off of the bandage to avoid having to look into observant big brown eyes.
"Why now?"
"Huh?"
She wishes that her hands wouldn't shake so much; it's really making the simple task a lot harder.
"Why are you living with Aunt Shelby and Uncle Luke now?" Maya asks.
"Oh- um…" Rachel fights to take a breath. She flicks her eyes up in an attempt to prevent tears from forming, before finally looking back at the girl. Innocent intrigue stares back at her. "My dads are in heaven, too," she eventually whispers.
Maya's face falls. She hesitates for a moment, brow knitted in thought, before using her uninjured arm to hug Rachel tightly. The older girl feels her body give a tiny shake as she unexpectedly melts into the touch.
"They're with my daddy," Maya says when she draws back. She reaches up to wipe away the tears from Rachel's cheeks. "Don't cry, Rachel. It's okay because now you're with your mom, and you have her and Uncle Luke. And that means you have me and my mom and also Dexter who you haven't met yet because he's got a broken arm, but you will meet him."
"Yeah," Rachel whispers, smiling a little at her kindness.
"And," Maya continues, "your dads are where my dad is." Like she had done earlier, she taps a finger against her chest. "So you can talk to them when you need to."
"Does it work?" Rachel finds herself asking. She knows she's being stupid for soliciting advice on grief from a kid, but she's also aware of how much more well-adjusted Maya is than her.
"Yeah, because you get to ask them things and then they'll tell you and you'll just know."
Later, after Rachel's patched up Maya's arm and made sure that she's safely back in bed, she leans back against her own pillows and stares up at her ceiling.
"Dad, Daddy," she breathes into the silent room. "I don't know where I'm going or what I'm doing. Can you help me?"
A/N- Thanks for reading! I hoped you enjoyed! I know progress is kind of slow, but I promise I just have one more yikes thing to put Rachel through before ~the truth comes out~...
As always, I love love love and appreciate any and all reviews/thoughts. Will be updating once I hit 300 reviews :-)
And that one was most definitely a joke. Stay safe, stay well, stay happy! xo