The last time I saw her was 1951, when I was back home visit- ing. Bill had found her holed up in some dive down near Pea Ridge, Arkansas. They drove through Neosho on their way back to Joplin, where they were living. Bill idled the car outside my ma’s house, didn’t even shut off the engine. I went out and leaned in the window. I’ll never forget how Crystal looked sitting there in the passenger seat, like a little old woman, nothing more than a skele- ton clutching the dashboard with fingers that looked like claws on some poor bird. She turned her head toward me and smiled, and I almost fell down right there and died. She looked like a mummy, her skin shrunk up and yellow, and her lips drawn back from her teeth. Even the whites of her eyes were yellow and, skinny as she was, her belly was swollen up like she was nine months pregnant. “Toad,” she said. “How you doing, little sister?” She smiled and I thought of that beautiful girl. She died a couple of months later, thirty- nine years old.