Secrets

Tess Roberts sat rigidly, gripping her hands to keep from covering her ears. Be sure your sins will find you out echoed through her head, a reminder of the days she had spent in parents’ household. She shook her head. Somehow she hadn’t thought it would be so public. She felt guilt and shame wash over her just as it had hundreds of times during the past twenty-five years. She sighed. Not only did she feel guilty; she felt cheap, exposed. How many times had she feared that her indiscretion would be revealed? Hundreds, thousands—she no longer kept up. She knew that she couldn’t ask God to spare her. She had done wrong, and now she was paying—big time. She glanced around the room. Her daughter Katie caught her eye and looked away quickly. Tess forgave her for being angry with her. Katie should be calling her hypocrite for the years of moral training that she had instilled in her daughter and son was now revealed as trivial as the old saying: Do as I say, not as I do. Her eyes touched on Nathan’s three daughters. Their backs were to her as they whispered quietly. Tess wondered what they were saying. She had never met them before. They probably despised her as much as she despised herself at this point. She sighed. There was no way that she could change anything though.