Rachel barely left Shelby's side for the rest of the weekend, she was terrified that Shelby would change her mind and leave her. She couldn't understand why someone would still want her to live with them when she was so bad.
Shelby could tell Rachel was a little anxious, that she was probably worrying about things Shelby couldn't even imagine, so she made sure to stay close by, only really leaving Rachel's side when one of them used the bathroom. She tried to keep things calm for her girl too, bringing out a puzzle from the play room and setting it on the coffee table for the two of them to work on together, and, when she saw Rachel shuffle even closer to her, the girl as close as she could be without actually sitting on Shelby's lap, Shelby reached out, rubbing circles on Rachel's back, "I'm not going anywhere" she said softly, "nothing you do will make me ask you to leave." Rachel didn't know why but she felt tears pricking at her eyes, she was being stupid and a baby, Shelby was definitely going to get sick of her soon. "Hey" Shelby saw Rachel's tears, "come here" she lifted Rachel to sit on her lap, cradling the girl in her arms as she cried.
"I'm sorry I'm being a baby".
"You're not being a baby" Shelby said softly, "you're Rachel, and you're allowed to be sad, you're allowed to be angry or confused, in this house you're allowed to feel however you feel."
"I'm too much trouble."
"No" Shelby held Rachel closer, "you are not too much trouble, not to me. You've been through a lot of things in very little time, you've dealt with things a lot of adults would struggle with and you're still so, so young Rachel, it's okay to have feelings, even ones that aren't so nice, that's one of the reasons I'd like you to go and see that special doctor that can help you find a way to deal with those feelings. I'm not going to send you away just because you feel sad or angry or anything like that. I will help you deal with those feelings and try and help you feel better."
She felt Rachel grasp the back of her shirt in her hand, the way she usually clutched at her blanket. "What if I make you mad and you want to send me away?"
Shelby rubbed at Rachel's back, "if you make me angry then we'll talk about what you did and why it made me feel angry, and we'll think about what you can do differently in future. But making me angry won't make me want to send you away. You need to learn rules and for that to happen you need consistency, that means you need things to be the same, you need routines and rules. And you won't get that if you keep moving to a new house because every house has new rules doesn't it? And it's hard to remember which rules were for which house."
Rachel nodded, "and sometimes they don't tell me the rules like you did and I don't know what I'm meant to do."
"That must be confusing and scary for you" Rachel nodded, "I don't want you to feel like that anymore" Shelby told her, "and here we have rules, we've spoken about them and if we find that we need to add more rules in the future, if the rules need to change then we'll talk about them again, and they're written down so if you need us to go through and read them again then we can do that as often as you like, and I promise that I will always do my best to be fair to you. But I make mistakes sometimes, everyone does, and if I make a mistake then we can talk about that and hopefully I'll learn from it so I can do better in the future. "
Rachel looked up at Shelby," you make mistakes? "
"Sure I do" she nodded, "everyone does, it's part of being human. "There might be times when I feel grumpy and I snap at you when you don't deserve it, I might make bad choices sometimes. Mistakes are how people learn, and that's the important thing, if you, I, anyone makes a mistake then we can talk about it and try and decide what we could do differently next time. We learn how to do better and we move on from it. "
Rachel was confused, she didn't think an adult had ever admitted to making mistakes before, she was bad, she did bad things, and it was always adults telling her she'd done something wrong, they never admitted to doing things wrong too. But Shelby kept telling her that was okay, it wasnt a problem if she did something wrong, Shelby kept reassuring her that she could learn how to be better but Rachel didn't know if she could believe that, she'd believed she was bad for so long that she wasn't sure she would ever know how to be good. She wanted to believe Shelby though, she wanted to believe she wouldn't always be yelled at and punished but she didn't know how to be better.
"What are you thinking about?" Shelby asked softly.
"What if I don't know how to be good." Rachel asked.
"Then it's my job to teach you, and I'll do that by giving you rules and routine. I'll tell you when you're doing good, and if you break any if the rules then, like I said, we'll talk about it, we'll talk about what you did, why you did it and what you can do differently, and, if it happens again, then we'll talk about it again. I'm not expecting you to adjust overnight, we just keep working and we keep trying. Maybe when you've been here for a while, when you're less scared, when you feel more settled, things will be easier for you."
There was no way that Shelby could miss how withdrawn Rachel became over the weekend, and by Monday morning, Shelby felt like she was taking care of the Rachel she'd first met, the girl almost mute answering questions only with a nod or a shake of her head, picking at her breakfast and not moving from her chair at the kitchen table until Shelby told her it was time to put her shoes on. It wasn't until they reached the school, when Shelby handed over her lunch bag and said goodbye, that Rachel spoke for the first time that morning. "Are you going to come back for me?" she whispered quietly as her eyes filled with tears.
"Of course" Shelby knelt on the floor and put her hand on Rachel's arm, "I'll be waiting right where I always wait at the end of the day."
"Even though I was bad?"
"You made a bad choice" Shelby corrected her, "you did a bad thing, that doesn't make you bad. And I told you, you had your punishment, you went to bed early, and now it's over, a clean slate, it's forgotten, I'm not angry, I'm not mad and I'm certainly not going to leave you here."
"Promise? You're really going to come back?" tears began rolling down Rachel's cheeks and Shelby pulled the girl into her arms, giving her the comfort she was so desperately craving.
"I promise you Rachel, with everything I have I'll be waiting for you at the end of the day."
"Okay" Rachel whispered.
"I will be waiting where I always am, you'll come home and we can make dinner together then we'll do your homework, practice your spellings and play a game before it's time for bath and bed, just like every night. I promise I won't be sending you anywhere."
"Okay" Rachel wiped her eyes on her sleeve, "see you later."
"Yes you will" Shelby wiped away the rest of Rachel's tears, "have a good day and try not to worry too much okay, you had your punishment and it's over now, clean start."
Shelby made sure to have a quick word with Rachel's teacher before she left, the woman promising to keep an eye on Rachel and to call her if Rachel got upset. She called Sarah as she walked home and, after exchanging pleasantries, Shelby told her, "Rachel's agreed to speak to a therapist, could you give me some recommendations?"
"Absolutely, I'll need to get it from the office so I can probably drop something off for you this afternoon."
"That's great, thank you, and if any of your recommendations have experience dealing with separation anxiety then that would probably be helpful too."
"Separation anxiety? Has something happened."
"I think it probably stems from never being able to settle anywhere but it became very apparent over the weekend."
"Sorry, its not that I don't believe you, it's just that none of her previous families have mentioned it."
"With the greatest of respect. None of her previous families noticed that she was short sighted, barely literate or that she puked every time she ate dairy."
"No, no, Rachel has been let down by the system and the people meant to be caring for her but I've done my best and…"
"No" Shelby interrupted Sarah, "it's not your fault, sorry, its just been a rough few days, I didn't mean to take it out on you."
"It's what I'm here for, and you sound like you need to offload."
Shelby sighed, "Rachel spent most of last week trying to push her boundaries and test my limits. It's nothing that I haven't dealt with before but I ended up sending her to bed early on Friday. I sent her upstairs to get changed so I could take five minutes to compose myself and when I went up she was crying and she wouldn't let me comfort her. I gave her some time and went back up. She was more responsive and we had the conversation that led to her agreeing to try therapy and then she went to bed. She woke in Saturday and came through to wake me up but I was downstairs. I found her under her bed crying because she thought I'd left. She's barely left my side all weekend and there were tears as she went into class this morning as she begged me to promise that I'd go back for her later."
"Okay, I'll definitely drop something off tonight, but if you want me to call and…"
"No thank you" Shelby interrupted, "I'd like to do some research first before I make a decision."
That didn't surprise Sarah at all, in fact she'd have been surprised if Shelby didn't take the time to research the recommended therapists to be sure she chose the perfect one for Rachel, "okay, well, like I said, I'll drop the list off later, and you know where I am if you need any help with anything. And if you need a break Shelby, if you need respite for Rachel then…"
"Absolutely not" she interrupted again, "that poor girl is convinced nobody wants her because she's 'bad'. Yes we've had a rough week, but I don't want her thinking I'm going to send her away because she's too much for me and I need a break, it's nothing that I've not dealt with before, in fact, I've dealt with worse before and you know it."
"I do, I was just reminding you that the offer's there if you need it."
"I know" Shelby balanced the phone on her shoulder as she let herself into the house, "but I won't be using it, Rachel needs consistency and routine, the last thing she needs is to be sent to another home, even temporarily."
