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the perfect cover for your being slapped back into reality by Samantha. It didn’t matter that I or anyone else didn’t know that Natalie was Hezekiah’s daughter. The important thing was that you knew it, and you could feel like the victim back in your safe little cocoon of self-pity, and since then you’ve been alone there.”
    Scarlett raised her hand and slapped David hard on the cheek. His head turned from the blow, but his feet remained firmly planted.
    â€œI guess now I’m supposed to slap you back. Is this a page from your battered wife script?” he said, rubbing his stinging cheek. “I’m afraid you’ll have to remind me what my next line is. I don’t seem to remember this scene.”
    Scarlett had been unprepared for his lack of emotion and his painfully pointed words on that day. His cold demeanor had been completely unexpected and had left her at a loss. His words swirled in her head, almost making her dizzy. Was she the perfect victim? Did the world, in fact, revolve around her and not Natalie? Was there some twisted desire to be abandoned and left alone with her scars and wounds? Was this the monster she’d created?
    She slapped him again and waited for a response. But she was greeted only with a questioning stare.
    â€œI hate you,” she finally said in a whisper.
    â€œYou don’t hate me, Scarlett. You hate the truth about yourself.”
    Scarlett looked puzzled. The words stung. For her entire life she felt she had sacrificed her happiness for others, and mostly for her daughter. But in the face of such a damning accusation, she slowly began to realize that in fact she had made all the sacrifices for herself. She needed to be the victim. It was all she knew. It was familiar and where she felt safe and, ironically, in control.
    â€œYou’re a coward to leave me over this,” she said, turning her back to him and walking to the sink. “I thought you were a better man than that.”
    â€œThat’s where you’re wrong again,” he said with a hint of irony. “I’m not leaving you because you’re a liar. I’m not even leaving you because you’re delusional.”
    Scarlett turned from the sink to face David. He had not moved from the threshold. Now the span of the room divided them. Steam from the coffeemaker on the marble island formed a light mist between them. “Then why?” she asked, her question tinged with a dare.
    â€œI’m leaving you for Samantha Cleaveland.”
    The painful memory of that day caused her hand to shake as she turned the steak in the sizzling pan. She had lost track of time and hadn’t realized the steak had burned on one side. The charred meat sent puffs of smoke into the kitchen.
    David had not left her, and she had never asked him why. He had sat next to her on the pew at New Testament Cathedral the following Sunday morning. Natalie had sat between them while Samantha looked down from the pulpit. He ate at the table with her and Natalie each night. He kept her car filled with gasoline, did the laundry, and paid the bills, just as he had before he learned that the little girl was the illegitimate child of his pastor.
    Life seemed almost normal each day, until it was time to retire to bed. It was then that the chasm that had developed between the two became the most apparent. David, as he always had, would pull the covers over Natalie’s shoulders as she drifted off to sleep, kiss her forehead, and whisper, “I love you, little princess.” From there he would walk into the spare bedroom and close the door behind him. Scarlett would not see him again until the next morning at breakfast.
    He hadn’t touched her in weeks. His words were succinct and civil, but strictly utilitarian. “I’m on my way to the market. Do you need anything?” or “I will be home late for dinner tonight,” was the typical length and depth of his