The Delayed Confession

I went home feeling tired. The day was an array of activities from a private class, an 8-hour work, another private class and a short stop at the local supermarket for groceries. There is a potluck tomorrow and I plan to bring my punch with seaweed and nata de coco. While roaming for things, I suddenly felt the urge to make fruit salad so I shopped for the ingredients. So, yes, I’m bringing the fruit salad.

After arriving home and feeling hungry, I decided to clean and fried one of the fish I’d bought. In the process, my sister came to join me in the kitchen.
“Mbak, I have a confession to make,” her face was slightly worried.
“What?” I said.
“Promise me. Promise me you won’t be angry,” she said.
“Of course I’ll be angry. Look at you. You must’ve done something terrible to my
stuff again? What now? Did you forget where to put things, again?”
“No. It’s not like that.”
“Is it my car?” I asked.
“No.” she answered.
“What, then?” I was getting very impatient.
“Promise you won’t be angry?”
“Of course I’ll be angry. It must be something terrible,” I said anxiously.
“Ahh…I’m sure you’ll be angry at me.” she said, starting to move away from me.
“WHAT?Tell me now, “ my voice showed impatience.
“It’s like this. Remember your Philips hand phone?”
“Yes? Oh no… You sold it?” With a harsh voice I said.
“No…no…no…. On that day, I was eating while driving and then, there was a phone call. I took the hand phone and when I was done, I put it back. The food was in a plastic bag and I threw it away after I finished eating. I think I’d thrown that plastic with your hand phone in it, mbak.” She showed me her regret but her gesture was ready for any reaction from me.
“You WHAT???? Oh, my God…!!!!” I screamed.
“Sorry, sis. I was thinking where your hand phone was until I couldn’t sleep that night. It took me sometime to realize that your hand phone was perhaps in that plastic bag I’d thrown away. Sorry, sis.”
“Where did you throw that bag?”
She answered, “Well, it was in Kemang. I went there the next day at 4.30 in the morning to that same garbage bin, but it seemed that a scavenger found it first because all I could find was the plastic bag.”

I couldn’t say anything afterwards. I couldn’t even get angry about her sloppiness. I was angry, though, because she didn’t tell me sooner. I told her God only knows how many times I’d searched for that hand phone every time I clean the house, hoping to find it.

I heaved a big sigh and said something about how I liked that hand phone. That's the end of the confession.

There was no reason to be angry at her. In a way, she’s got her punishment: the temporary insomnia and the ‘historical trip” to Kemang at 4.30 to race with the scavengers, not to mention that she's lost that hand phone for more than 3.5 years. Being angry would only tire me. Besides, she had had enough punishment, right?