Chapter Nineteen

Shelby was at her desk, typing away. Emails to her students asking about extra credit and make-up homework assignments. A kiss-up note from Jessie asking to use his favorite song, Bohemian Rhapsody for the next Vocal Adrenaline performance. A long list of staff members, wishing her luck at regionals...she sent them a collective group email in thanks.

She felt a quiet shadow near her desk. A student's nervous energy, probably wringing her hands to ask a question.

"Mom?"

Shelby looked up. Rachel. She wasn't able to suppress a sigh.

"Shouldn't you be in tutorial?" Shelby tried to say gently but there was an edge to her voice.

Rachel looked fairly vulnerable, and Shelby wanted to comfort her, but it was also hard to suppress the annoyance she was feeling at Rachel's acting out behavior. Going to the club like that without telling anyone, getting drunk on top of that...it was unacceptable. It made her once again question Leroy's capabilities as a parent. Rachel was an at-risk youth, with failing grades, a general lack of responsibility, and apparently, a drug problem.

Shelby had searched Rachel's room and found, though they were incredibly well hidden in the strangest places that only she would think to look, because she had once, been a teenager with similar problems, cigarette packs. Under her wardrobe, stuffed into a pair of socks in her backpack, behind the toothpaste and make-up remover in Rachel's own private bathroom attached to her room...

Shelby had never had a teenager in her custody before, but she was an assertive person, she dealt with teenagers every day...she could handle Rachel, she knew that. But she also wanted to give Leroy the benefit of the doubt, and she wasn't sure if it would be good for Rachel...emotionally, to suddenly move out of Leroy's house, suddenly move in with her...she wasn't sure. Only time would tell.

For now she had began searching out counseling programs for Rachel. Rachel had insisted on having sessions with Emma Pillsbury whom she seemed to trust. Shelby had told her that was fine for now, but was also going to find her a professional who specialized in anxiety, drug problems, and emotional issues caused by foster care. Thinking about all of these things made guilt flare up inside of Shelby. In many ways, she herself had emotionally abused Rachel, caused one of the deepest trauma's in her life, by giving her away without explaining anything to her. Shelby felt like she needed to toughen up and just face up to that guilt though, and not back down.

She had Rachel now, she was going to make it right.

"Mom, can I talk to you?"

"Sure sweetie, you can always talk to me," Shelby said.

Shelby led her into one of their practice rooms. So they could be alone and talk privately.

The door closed behind Shelby.

Rachel was a little intimidated by the closed in space, only large enough for a piano and about four other people to stand side by side. It was nerve-wrecking to be in a room so small with her mother who was taller than her, and radiated this energy that suggested that she had not completely forgiven Rachel for the incident with the club, and with the alcohol and finding her cigarettes...

Rachel sat down on one end of the piano bench, and studied the keys, as if she was about to start playing them. Shelby sat down beside her. But she left her a bit of extra space between them.

"What is this about?" Shelby said, voice strong but also kind.

"There's something I haven't told you about Quinn..." Rachel said, touching the tops of two keys with her fingers. "She's pregnant. And she's going to have the baby...but I don't think her parents will let her keep it so..."

Shelby let the words sink in, but waited for Rachel to continue, wanting to be sure that she knew what Rachel was asking.

Rachel finally looked up at her. "Mom, could you take in her baby? Adopt, her baby?"

Shelby just stared for a moment. "Rachel I can't take in another child," her voice was verging on angry, so she made a conscious attempt to soften it. "But I'm sure that there are plenty of other homes that would be willing to take her in."

She was too busy with Rachel, making sure that she stayed safe, to ever even consider having or adopting another child.

Rachel looked deeply disappointed. "Are you sure? Because I think that you would be the perfect person to adopt Quinn's baby."

Shelby laughed at that. "Why is it so important to you that I be the one to take her in?"

"I want to help Quinn raise her baby, I want to be there for her...because, because I wish that the man who could have been my adoptive father, could have stayed with you, and helped you raise me..."

"Rachel..." Shelby sighed, feeling a wave of love and sympathy for her child. Rachel's large brown eyes, seemed so desperate to help and save Shelby from her own troubled past. "You are in high school. You and Quinn both. You're too young to be the parent of a child, really. My situation was completely different, I was an adult. And I had no one but Chris when he abandoned me. I could have given you up, but I didn't, because I did have the means to take care of you. I'm not saying that Quinn should have to give up her baby and never see her again. There are options for open adoptions, and I can even help you and Quinn look for a family. But I just think that you're too young to be chained to Quinn the way that raising a baby with her would make you chained to her. You can't be certain that you want to be with Quinn just yet."

"I don't want to be with Quinn," Rachel admitted. "Not right now at least. I think maybe in the future...but I just don't know. I mean we broke up and I actually found somebody else."

Shelby looked surprised and interested at that.

"Her name is Dani," Rachel continued. "And she is just...she just feels like one of those people where you meet them, and you just feel this strong, instant connection you know...?"

Shelby nodded. "I think that it is good that you found someone new." Shelby thought for a moment. "It was at the club wasn't it? And she gave you the alcohol."

Shelby could tell just by the expression on Rachel's face that she was correct.

"I want you to tell me before you go on a date with her again. And I want you to either hangout at my place, or have me drive you to your location, and pick you up."

"Mom, she has a car, and she drives."

Shelby thought for a moment, she really didn't want to embarrass Rachel, she was against that kind of parenting.

"Then you have to text me before you go anywhere with her, and be back home before nine. Same with when your with Leroy. And if I or him smell so much as a whiff of alcohol on your breath that's it and I am driving you guys everywhere from then on."

Rachel smiled. "I love you."

Shelby pulled her into a hug. "I love you too."