“Sure.” She poured both of us a glass and sat, pushing the evil sugar bowl across the table to me. “Thanks. Remember the day I broke this?”

“Are you serious? I thought Momma was going to put you up for adoption.”

“Me, too. So what happened?”

“I thought about what you and Momma said about full disclosure. Y’all were right. Charlie should’ve told me before he married me. I asked him that and he said he was afraid to tell me, afraid I wouldn’t love him anymore, that he loved me. But this other passion of his never stopped him from being all man in the bedroom, that’s for sure.”

“Well, I suppose that’s good to know.”

“We had six years of bliss, him spoiling me to death with cars and jewelry and trips and fabulous dinners, but he never said a word.”

“Do you think he was dressing up all the time?”

“Absolutely.”

“You’ve never told me how this all came about in the first place. How you found out, I mean.”

“Okay, brace yourself. Charlie was out with the guys one night, or so I thought. Anyway, he was really at a club where female impersonators perform. He was dressed up as Cher and lip-synced “I Got You Babe” hoping to win free drinks. He won free drinks, but he also got a DUI on the way home. He was too loaded to change his clothes at the club. He thought I’d be sleeping at that hour anyway, that he could just sneak in and change in the guest room, but the nice policeman took him to jail and then he called me to bail him out.”

“Holy crap! So you go to the jail and there he is dressed up like Cher?”

“All except the wig. He had to take it off for his mug shot.”

“So you were pretty shocked.”

“You could say that. Yeah.”

“Then what?”

“We had words. He felt I was being cruel to him, that if I loved him, I should just love him no matter what he was wearing.”

“You know, that actually kind of sounds fair to me,” I said, “but I’m not the one struggling with it.”

“Well, that’s just it, isn’t it? He’s right. If I love him, I love him. My problem is the deceit. Charlie was always a little bit effeminate. The world knew that. That’s fine with me. He played some sports, tennis and golf, and he got along with the jocks. In fact, I always liked him because he was more compassionate or nicer than the other guys. He was a sweetheart. It’s why I fell in love with him in the first place. But this deceit was so huge, I just freaked out.”

“Well, I understand that. I hate lying. Especially given the nature of the lie. So now what?”