I think that the reason why Faith doesn't try to resolve this family problem right away is because she also felt a sense of comfort when the secret was exactly that, a secret. The experiences she had in the past when she would mention it were always full of anger and denial and never led to any kind of resolution. She knows that although her family is visibly fine, deep inside there are feelings of confusion, hate, and denial waiting to erupt. I think that Faith, being the smartest in the family, knows that things need to be resolved. Throughout the story she brings it up with the expectation that one-day the life of lies will end and the life of honesty, which she deeply yearns for, will begin. .
Miss Irene, much like Faith, kept the secret bottled up for years. When she confronted Papa about the accusation, he turned it around to be her fault and she ended up the one apologizing. I feel that this statement where Miss Irene basically takes the blame away from Papa, "You said you were sorry, but you didn't say that you wouldn't do it again. That's all I wanted to hear. I didn't want you to leave. And I wasn't going to throw you out. I just wanted you to promise it wouldn't happen again"(45) is very crucial to the attitude that she holds towards the whole situation. Miss Irene is a very lonely woman and all she wants is to be loved but unfortunately she always picks the wrong men and when things don't work out, she blames anyone but the man, which I think is very obvious in the previous statement. Each of the men, since Papa, has all cheated on her with Hope. In her eyes, Hope is a little tramp who doesn't want her to be happy. She feels that Papa was the best man that she ever had, other than Hope and Faith's father, and Hope took that away from her. I think that she blames Hope because she is afraid to admit that Papa or any of the other men that Hope took from her, were not good enough and that she deserves better.