Barbara Jean knew what the first words out of Miss Carmel’s mouth would be and she held her breath, bracing herself to hear them. Miss Carmel didn’t disappoint. In her high-pitched, feathery voice she said, “Sweetheart, did you know you were born on my davenport?” Barbara Jean’s mother, Loretta Perdue, was drunk when she gave birth on the living room sofa of Miss Carmel, a woman she had never met. Her friends had thrown
