“I don’t know. I love my son, but I just can’t accept the thought of him kissing no boys, and Lord only knows what else they do. It’s weird, I don’t care what you say.”

“Okay,” she says. “We can come back to this issue another time, if you don’t mind?”

“No, I don’t mind. But what about my husband? And my sister who don’t like me and always accusing me of being jealous of her, which is not true? And then, before my mama passed, she asked that all her kids spend Thanksgiving together, and I’m supposed to go to my sister’s fancy big house when deep down I don’t want to, but if I don’t, I’ll be labeled the wicked witch, and I don’t want no more friction if it can be avoided. So what you think about this?”

“Wow. That’s a mouthful. How about we start by talking about your situation with your husband?”

“I’m listening.”

“What do you think about it?”

“He’s a liar and I don’t trust him.”

“I think that makes a lot of sense. Given what you’ve said here about him, it would be hard to trust him.”

“So you think I should go on and divorce him?”

“I think we have to figure out what you really want to do about this. I imagine you have mixed feelings and are conflicted about some of this.”

“Yeah, but so what?”

“What kinds of things does he lie about?”

“I only caught him in two. But they was two big ones.”

“Can you tell me what they were?”

“Yeah. Ten years ago he had a affair with some woman and I busted him on it, and now I just find out that she had his baby and he been taking care of it all these years.”

“And?”

“And that’s it.”

“That’s why you want to divorce him?”

“Yeah, wouldn’t you?”

“I can’t say what I’d do in this situation. I’m more interested in what you’re feeling.”

“I’m pissed off. I hate his guts. I don’t trust him. Don’t believe a word he say.”

“Do you still love him?”

“That’s beside the point.”

“That’s beside the point?” the doctor says. Is she a echo doctor or what?

“What’s love got to do with it? Like Tina said.”

“Charlotte,” she says, folding her hands.

“Yeah.”

“Tell me why you’re here. What you want me to help you do.”

“I told you on the questionnaire. I want to make some changes in my life, and it’s so much stuff going on I just don’t know where to start. I need to sort some of it out.”

“Well, you are starting. You’re here, today.” She takes a quick peek at her watch.

“Is my time up already?”

“Not quite. About ten more minutes. We stop at ten to the hour.”

“Okay,” I say, trying to hurry up. “I also wanna talk about my job.”

“What about your job?”

“I hate it. I wanna quit. I work for the post office, but I wanna start my own business and stop punching in and punching out. I’m tired of getting up at the crack of dawn five days a week and still ain’t making no money. I wanna do something on my own. I forgot to mention that I hit Little Lotto for a hundred thousand.”