Never Again Separate
By Cypher
Chapter Five
Ruthie rested on her bed, half listening to the discussion going on downstairs in the kitchen. They didn't think the sound would travel, but it did. Her room had the perfect acoustics to pick up and amplify just about every sound in her home. That, and she had spent years honing her ears to pick up even the softest whisper. She didn't like not knowing anything that went on in her house.
She often found herself wondering why she had trained herself to eavesdrop. None of her other siblings ever did it, nor did her parents. And yet it seemed so natural, so much a part of her, that she shrugged off her suspicions of why. For all she knew, her grandmother or aunt was an eavesdropper. But now she knew the truth.
She wasn't a Hahne.
It made perfect sense now that she knew. She looked a lot like the Hahnes, yet she never truly matched their physique. Her oldest brother, Jeff, had always acted strangely around her, and from time to time she had picked up the phrase "before she came into this house." She assumed he meant before she was born. He hadn't. He had meant before she was adopted.
Adopted.
She knew what the word meant, she knew the implications, and yet she had never considered that a possibility. In all of her short life, she had always known she was somewhat different, but was still a Hahne. And now, just as she was about to hit her teenage years, she found out that her life was a lie. She was a Camden. Not Ruthie Hahne. Ruthie Camden.
That's what they were talking about downstairs. Matt, her true older brother, had left a day ago, and they were still trying to figure out if associating with him was the best thing for her. Why don't I have a say? I'm certainly wiser than Becky.
Becky. The eldest twin of the Hahne family. She remembered rooming with her for a while when she was really young, to help her get used to the family. Looking back, Ruthie realized that it was probably to get them accustomed to her. She was the stranger in their lives.
Becky, though, she had always tried to make Ruthie feel like the family. Sure, she had shortcomings, such as always picking the wrong guy to date, and failing in math because she was too busy staring at the cute guy sitting across the room, but she always treated Ruthie like a sister. A true sister.
Not like Jeff. He was a jerk for a while.
Indeed. The twin of Becky, Jeff, was the other oldest of the siblings. He had a bit of a superiority complex. Ruthie's first memories of him weren't pleasant. He was always frowning at her, pushing her out of the way, deliberately making her feel left out. Becky had always come to her rescue, though. It helped that she could beat up her brother pretty easily.
After three years, though, he began to warm up to Ruthie. Especially when he realized that she had begun eavesdropping on his conversations with girlfriends. He had confronted her about that, but Ruthie was able to blackmail him into leaving her alone. After one rocky date, though, Ruthie, on Becky's urging, went and talked with Jeff. Her insights had actually saved the relationship, and after that Jeff began treating her like one of the family.
She even kept his biggest secret of all: that he was sexually active. His first experience was when he was fifteen. She was shocked, but he made her promise not to tell anyone. She did, but it cost him. She had made a killing off that secret. Until their mother died. He felt so guilty that he admitted the truth, and was currently serving an open-ended grounding. Mom and dad could always get him to do what they said. He's eighteen. You'd think he'd have broken away from them.
But he hadn't. If anything, their mother's death brought them closer together. Jennifer Hahne. Ruthie had loved her so much. She was an at home mom that did community service year round. Ruthie liked to help her every now and then. It was their special bonding time. And now that time was lost, destroyed by the evil of cancer.
Ruthie was one of the hardest hit of the family, but she held strong. Her siblings, even Jeff and Becky, were falling to pieces around her. Her father was a wreck, so much that he didn't leave his room for a couple days. Ruthie knew what she had to do, though. She took charge, ordering her siblings about to get things somewhat back to normal, to set up a new system that would work without their mother.
They were surprised, and Ruthie heard them saying how proud they were she was so strong, how great she was for taking charge and bringing order to the chaos. They didn't know that she wasn't as strong as she looked. Only she, Ruthie, knew of the times she cried herself to sleep, when she sat staring for minutes on end because something reminded her of her mother. And she wouldn't let her family find out, because they needed someone who was a rock.
Jan, Shirley, and Dave, her other siblings, seemed to draw strength from her facade. She was glad, too. Once they were back to normal, she could grieve quietly, alone, without anyone knowing. Jan and Shirley, her two older sisters, even managed to convince their father to return to the pulpit, to rejoin life. When he did, Ruthie knew it was her time to slink quietly away and cry.
Except she hadn't managed to slink alone. Dave, her sibling only one year younger than her, knew what she was up to. How or why, she didn't know. But he was there, and he helped her through her own period of grief. And she was glad he had followed her. Even she needed a shoulder to cry on every now and then.
He was currently downstairs, with the rest of the family, discussing just how much she should interact with Matt and learn about the Camdens. They thought she was napping, taking a break from her chores. She liked to give that impression. It allowed her to eavesdrop so much more easily.
Currently, Jan and Shirley, the two siblings that had always accepted her as one of the family, were talking over the pros and cons of letting her explore her true bloodline. Nice to see they're going about this with some sense.
Jeff and Becky were strongly opposed. Becky didn't like Matt because he hurt Ruthie, and Jeff didn't like Matt because he had caused Ruthie to run away. Neither wanted her to suffer more from a life she never really belonged to either. It makes sense. Until now I've never known that the Camdens existed.
Her father was unnaturally quiet. For once, she didn't know what he was thinking, or if he had already made up his mind. He had said yes the day before, but he could easily change his mind. Ruthie wasn't sure what she wanted him to do.
Dave finally spoke up. Ruthie wasn't sure what he would say, either. He was somewhat clingy, and didn't like anything detracting his sister's attention away from him. She was therefore surprised when he told the others to stop discussing it and ask what she wanted. It was her life, after all. Why not let her decide if she wanted to know more about her true family or not?
The problem is, Ruthie thought as she sat back against the end of her bed, I'm not entirely sure what I want. I've always been a Hahne. Will being a Camden change who I am? Change my role in the family?
And then, for some reason, Ruthie thought of her mother. Her pale, sickly mother with graying short hair and hollowed eyes as she reached out and touched Ruthie's hand shortly before the cancer fully overtook her.
"Ruthie, honey?"
"Mom, don't try to talk. You need to rest."
"Listen, please."
Ruthie thought for a moment. "Alright."
"Never. Never be ashamed of your heritage. You're a Hahne. You'll always be a Hahne. No matter what. Embrace your family. You'll always be one of us."
Ruthie didn't understand it at the time, but now she did. She was telling me that even though I'm not truly a Hahne, I'm still part of the family. Being a Camden is only a title. Nothing I do will change where I belong.
"Ruthie?" Her father, Reverend Jason Hahne, knocked on her door. "You awake?"
"Come on in."
The Reverend opened the door and walked in, sitting on her desk chair. "How long have you been up?"
"A while. I was just thinking, that's all."
"Ah." He glanced around the room. "About Matt Camden and your family..."
"Yes?"
He paused, as if unsure for a moment. "What do you want to do about it?"
Ruthie stood, then sat on the edge of her bed. "I'm a Hahne, dad. No matter what I'll be a Hahne." She looked at her bedspread a minute. "But, I feel I owe it to Matt, to the people who gave birth to me, to learn about who they were. What the family was like." She looked back over to her dad. "I'm going to find out all I can, but in my heart, I'm still a Hahne."
Her father smiled, got up, and went over and hugged her. "You're so mature in many ways, Ruthie."
"I know, dad." She closed her eyes. "I know."
Her father left, and she went downstairs to the family computer in the living room. She logged on to the internet and typed in an e-mail address she had gotten the day before. Dear Matt. It's Ruthie. Can you please...tell me about our parents...
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Author's Prattle: Finally got chapter five done. Sorry for the delay, but I had two quizzes and I have two midterms on Monday. Have to study. School comes before pleasure (unless the writers at 7th Heaven read this and want me on their staff. I wish). I didn't spend much time on Ruthie's life as I did on her reaction. I'll be like that with each child. Mary examined her life, Ruthie remembered her mother's death more than anything else, and Simon and Lucy...well, you'll just have to wait and see. Until next chapter. As always, if you enjoyed, please review.