There’s a story in The Torturer’s Apprentice where an atheist develops stigmata and powers of prophecy. He has a psychiatrist to deal with the implications of this, but as the underground religious groups begin to take care of him more, he stops seeing her. Months later, he calls her and says “don’t go on the trip next week.” She’s unsettled that knows about the trip in advance, but is genuinely terrified after she has a drunken hookup with another doctor at a reception, and gets pregnant with this other man’s baby. What does she do? She raises the child and lies to everyone about its origins. She’s certain she’s going to hell for this, but why should she be the one who’s happy? Confessing would make her feel better, but it would hurt everyone else immeasurably. Instead she holds the secret inside her, painfully, and plans to take it to the grave. “Why should I be the one who’s happy?” She did wrong, after all. She can punish herself.
Secretly Ironic 