Unconfessed Confessions

  Unconfessed Confessions               

    Beth watched her older and only sister Ruth gasping for air as she lay in pain in her hospice bed. It was obvious to her that today her sister was worse. She pulled up a chair and sat down beside her, tears welling up in her eyes as she did so. She couldn’t have asked for a better sister than Ruth. 

       “You feeling a little better today Ruth?” she asked as she had every day for the past week now.  

        Ruth moaned.  “I’m taking your secret  to the grave with me Beth just like I promised you and our folks that I would years ago.”

       That was out of the blue.  Beth had no idea that her sister would be thinking of her at a time like this. Why was she bringing that up now? Perhaps she was trying to reassure her, comfort her, let her know that she cared about her right to the end.

     “Ruth how can you be thinking of me at a time like this,” said Beth. “You should be praying for a miracle. Miracles can still happen you know.”  

    “Be realistic little sister. Miracles don’t happen to someone with terminal cancer. If I was going   to have a miracle, it would have happened by now. And don’t put in my obituary, ``She fought the courageous fight against cancer.’ I’m not courageous. I’m giving up. I’m ready to go. I pray each night to pass away peacefully in my sleep. That’s the miracle I’m praying  for.”

    Silence engulfed the stale aired sterile hospice room. They were the only two there. Beth wiped away her tears. Ruth closed her eyes and laid there in a state of near death exhaustion. Yet somehow she found the strength to continue talking, to get out these things that she wanted to say before she died. 

    “I was lucky,”  she said, face grimacing in pain. “I had a full and wonderful life. I had a good loyal adoring husband in Mark, God rest his soul. We had a long, happy, wonderful, joyous, prosperous life together. Got that beautiful home on the lake that we always wanted. Got a college education, got a good teaching job with a good pension and benefits. Finally got that  little girl I wanted after those three little rascal boys of ours. I was truly blessed and I’m not afraid of dying. I’m ready to check out. So stop worrying about me and get back to your own life.” Ruth coughed and gagged a little, then sucked in some deep heavy breaths.

    Beth reflected back on her own life. She had an associate degree not a B.A., still worked at the same small accounting office that she had for years with no pension, no benefits, never had a husband and worst of all, she had no children.

    “Yes you were lucky Ruth. I wish that I had been as fortunate as you. Your daughter was so cute when she was little. Looks just like you. And as for those little rascal boys of yours as you call them, well they all turned out to be fine young gentleman now didn’t they. I wish that I could have had a family like you have.”

    Ruth always wondered why Beth never married, never had a family. She knew she wanted one. But whenever she tried to talk to Beth about it, Beth would always become upset and tell her to drop the subject. So she did.

    Beth stared out the window into another world, the world of her past.  “Bruce had a boy you know. Looks just like him I heard.”

    “Quit thinking about Bruce Beth,” commanded Ruth. “Let it go. That ended years ago. Like I said no one will ever know anything about you two after I’m gone.” She was afraid now that Beth would fly off the handle and wallow in her own self pity as she always did whenever she mentioned  Bruce.

     “I heard when he moved away, that he moved in with his mother in law after his father in law died and that she supported him and Mindy while he went to college and got his engineering degree. Then he got that good government job with the Corps of Engineers and started his family.” Beth’s bitterness was palpable.

    “Let it go Beth please,” begged Ruth again her face contorting in pain. “When you were going with him he was working at a cement factory driving a truck. Mom and Dad thought that he had no future. They didn’t want you married to someone with no future. In their own weird perverted way they did what they thought best for you.” Ruth gulped air, caught her breath.

      Beth ignored her sister. “Oh he wasn’t good enough for their precious little daughter was he. That’s why they broke us up. They never saw his potential. I always knew that he had potential. Sure he was just a kid then but he had plans to go to junior college at night and work during the day to get enough money for his last two years and get his degree. But our folks were so sure that he was a loser, that he would never amount to anything. But I continued to date him anyway, didn't I? And then after I got pregnant.” She stopped.  “Well you know the rest of the story.” 

      But Ruth didn’t know all the rest of the story. 

      “Enough. Drop it please,” begged Ruth again. 

     “Worked out great for Bruce didn’t it?” Him marrying Mindy, Mindy’s father dying, and then moving out of town to live with his mother in law so she could support them while he went to college.” 

    “For God’s sake Beth you’re repeating yourself. Besides that’s not fair to Mindy’s mother. She was lonely and grieving after her husband died. She was glad to have them move in with her into that big old empty house of hers for the companionship.  So what if her son in law got an education. She was glad to help. There’s nothing wrong with that. So just drop it Beth.”

    Ruth knew this would have  no effect on her sister but she said it anyway even though it caused her skeletal body to ache all over as she did so. Her meds were wearing off.

      Something was weighing heavy on Ruth’s mind now. Something Beth knew nothing about. Something that had happened when she was away at college in California. Ruth had planned to tell Beth this before she died so that Beth wouldn’t feel that she was the only person in the world who had a tragedy in her life. But what’s the point now she thought. Even her husband Mark never knew it, and if she didn’t tell him, why should she tell her sister now, now of all times.

    “Okay I’ll drop it,” said Beth.

     Ruth never heard her. Her mind was having the ongoing conversation with herself that she had been having for years. “Oh, how I wish that I had kept my first daughter. Oh how I wish that I had had both my daughters with me. Oh how I wish they could have known each other.” 

      Beth was off in her own world too now. Couldn’t get Bruce off her mind. 

     “Bruce passed away last year you know. Had a heart attack way too young. Mindy was a widow just like her mother was at age fifty nine.” 

      Again Ruth never heard her, her mind still  fixated on her college days. It was just one of those stupid things college kids did back in the sixties, free love. But she had paid the price for free love then and had paid the price for free love ever after. 

     Nothing was said between the two of them for a couple of minutes or so. Beth staring off into space. Ruth lying there eyes closed, barely breathing, not moving, causing Beth to panic.  

     “Ruth you okay?”  “You asleep? Don’t you dare die on me now.” Beth grabbed her sister’s arm and shook her.

      “Stop that hurts,” yelped Ruth to Beth’s relief. She let go of her sister’s arm.

       Ruth went  back to thinking about the daughter she never kept. Maybe one day the two girls would meet. The internet now has lots of sites to help an adoptee find their bio people. If that’s what fate wanted, so be it. Maybe both sisters would know each other after all. She would never know though. She’d be dead. But if it did happen, at least she would be spared all those embarrassing questions about who’s the father. Little comfort was that to her now.

    “Ruth there’s something that I want to tell you something, something that,” then Beth stopped mid sentence, “Oh never mind I’ll tell you tomorrow. You rest now.”

    Beth had been contemplating telling Ruth the rest of her story of her and Bruce that Ruth didn’t know. Oh Ruth knew that their folks arranged for Beth to have her and Bruce’s child aborted. This was the family secret they had kept from the world all these years. That she was taking  to the grave with her. That Bruce took to the grave with him. That his wife never knew.   

     But what Ruth didn’t know about Beth was that their folks had her fixed like the way a veterinarian fixes a dog or a cat and this had been eating at Beth something terrible all her life. That’s why she never married because she could never have any children. No man would want a woman who couldn’t give him children. Beth hated her folks for doing that to her, treating her as something less than human like she was their pet. She wanted her big sister to hate her folks as much as she had hated them all these years and most of all she wanted validation from her big sister that it was okay for her to do so.

       But instead Beth dropped the subject. What would be the point now she thought. Why dump all this off on her now of all times. That wouldn’t be right, unburdening herself on a dying woman. That would be way too selfish of a thing to do. 

      Ruth moaned louder this time. Her eyes closed as she rolled her head side to side. Like Beth she too had decided to keep her secret to herself. She could see the grief in her sister’s face, hear it in her voice, knew there was no point in unburdening herself on her sister at a time like this. That she would be burdened enough with her passing. At first she was going to ask her sister to find her first daughter. But now at the last minute decided against it realizing this would be way too  much of a dying request. Besides maybe the girl didn’t even want to be found anyway. Perhaps she was perfectly happy with the family that she has and to subject the girl to a new family might be the wrong thing to do, maybe even cruel. Perhaps. Perhaps this. Perhaps that. Perhaps it was best that all of this die with her.

    “I’ll let you rest now Ruth. Gotta go. See ya tomorrow.” Beth bent over and kissed her sister on her cold dry forehead. 

    Ruth never acknowledged the kiss. No response came from her crusted lips. No sound from her shriveled up body. She was gone.

    Ruth had taken her secret to the grave with her. Beth still had to live with the pain of hers.