“Suzanne, I cannot even begin to tell you how happy I am to have met you and to spend this time with you,” I said. “I hope you’re going to come and visit us on Sullivan’s Island.”

“When things get dull, just give me a call,” she said and winked at me.

“I can see the two of us,” Char said, “taking a walk over to the Obstinate Daughter for a martini.”

“Finally, a restaurant in your name,” the QB said, deadpan.

I bit my lip so I wouldn’t laugh.

“The Obstinate Daughter?” Suzanne said. “That’s the name of a restaurant?”

“Yes,” I said. “During the American Revolution the Carolinas refused to surrender and so the press in England began to refer to us as the Obstinate Daughter.”

“Brilliant!” Suzanne said. “The Brits have always had a way with words.”

“Do you think that’s a true story?” Char said to the QB.

“I’m only sixty-four, not two hundred and forty something,” Momma said with a sniff.

“Oh! My apologies! I thought you were there! Right on the front lines!” Char said with a look of mock horror.

Even the queen laughed.

It wasn’t easy saying good night, and it wasn’t easy saying good-bye at the airport. Not at all. Char had stayed behind, still pouting because we were leaving. When she told me she wasn’t coming I thought, Oh boy, she still has a lot of growing up left to do. I didn’t like who she was becoming, which was a completely self-centered pain-in-the-neck diva. She was all over Momma when she was sewing for her but pretty much uninterested in her well-being. What did that say about her?

I got our boarding passes while Momma stood with our bags, saying good-bye to Suzanne. There was definitely something cooking between them. I thought that after our father left us, Momma would never let another man into her heart. But Suzanne was solidly in Momma’s heart and most likely got in there because she was so completely disarming. Having had next to no exposure to female impersonators beyond Monty Python on television, Momma had let her guard down around Suzanne, and was probably as confused about her sexuality at first as I was when Charlie came clean with me. But now she knew better and was having a difficult time leaving her.

Suzanne was standing there, her head wrapped in a black silk kerchief and wearing only minimal makeup, looking more like Johnny Depp’s chubby father than anyone else who came to mind. That would be Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean, not Edward Scissorhands. The effect of Suzanne’s style of dressing was not unnerving at all. In an unusual way, it was damn sexy. She was a Venus flytrap and Momma was her bug.