I was stuck in a 1959 Chevy Bel Air on a humid St Louis August afternoon while Jimmy, my mother’s long-term boyfriend and soon-to-be short-term husband, sat at the wheel lecturing my older sister and me on “the birds and bees”. Mother in the passenger seat offered an occasional nod, while holding her mirrored compact in one hand and re-applying Revlon red lipstick with the other.
