Read The Last Sunday for Free Online Page A

communications to her.
    Until Hezekiah’s death Scarlett hadn’t realized just how much she had loved him. The love she felt had been so heavily camouflaged by respect, admiration, and nostalgia that she herself hadn’t recognized it for what it was.
    Scarlett had been smart and beautiful her entire life, but she had never really known it. Her shyness had often been mistaken for conceitedness. Boys had found the attractive Southern girl captivating. Her naïveté and soft voice had garnered proposals of marriage long before she turned eighteen.
    At nineteen she became Hezekiah Cleaveland’s secretary. Scarlett was professional and efficient. Hezekiah was immediately attracted to the young beauty and pursued her from the start. She was flattered by the attention from the handsome minister but flatly refused his constant advances. She often cried after work and wondered what she had done to elicit such carnal responses from the man she admired.
    After a year Scarlett could resist no longer. She gave in to the pastor and began a two-month affair. Hezekiah was the first man she had ever been with. He was gentle and attentive and never made her feel cheap. Scarlett soon learned she was pregnant. Hezekiah offered to put her up in an apartment until the baby was born. After that, he told her, she would have to give the baby up for adoption.
    She was devastated. Not because she was pregnant, but because the man she had fallen in love with did not share her joy. Samantha soon learned of Scarlett’s condition and immediately fired her. Scarlett then married a man who had pursued her since she was fifteen. It wasn’t easy, but she convinced her new husband that the baby she was carrying was his.
    For five years the couple lived a turbulent life filled with physical abuse and mistrust. Her new husband never believed the cute little girl was really his. In a violent argument he threw Scarlett and Natalie out on the street. Scarlett had never loved her husband, so the divorce came as a relief, but the pain of her secret lingered. She still held it close to her chest, like an unwanted family heirloom that she had been entrusted to protect.
    Scarlett rejoined New Testament Cathedral after her marriage ended and soon became a trusted and valuable member of the church. Eventually, Hezekiah, who had never lost his deep affection for her, appointed Scarlett to the board of trustees.
    She had harbored loathing for Samantha Cleaveland for years, and now it intensified. She had always suspected that Samantha would want to take over the church if Hezekiah ever died, and Scarlett vowed to do all within her power to prevent it if she ever tried.
    Scarlett thought she had put all the love, pain, and rejection behind her, until she saw Hezekiah lying on the pulpit with blood pouring from his head and chest. The carnage released emotions she assumed had long passed. Now she realized that David was right. She had been in love with Hezekiah and grieved his death as a widow would. The feelings took her by surprise and left her a quivering, whimpering bundle of nerves, one who would burst into tears at the thought of him. The feelings were accompanied by a staggering dose of shame and embarrassment. Not over the fact that she had had an affair with a married man or that she had lied about Natalie. She was ashamed about the fact that she had not realized herself just how much she loved him and how much his rejection had shaped the fragile woman she had become.
    Scarlett coughed from the billows of smoke that were again rising from the burning steak. Once again she had lost track of time. She quickly removed the charred meat from the pan and dropped it with a thud onto a waiting bundle of paper towels. She looked at the greens and discovered they were bubbling over the rim of the pot and spewing liquid onto the stove’s surface. The beeping oven timer then caught her attention. It had run ten minutes past the time she had set.