“Well, I wish I’d had a testicle to squeeze, preferably Will Alec’s, Roger’s, or Philip’s. There are times when a husband just isn’t likable.”

She pushed her chair back. “I’ll just take it over to Debbie. She’ll get a kick out of it. Philip says they call them Einstein’s testicles.”

“Why?” I couldn’t believe I was actually interested in this.

“Proves the theory of relativity.”

The woman had lost her mind. Our grandparents, Alice and John Tate, had three grandchildren, Luke, Mary Alice, and me. One out of three with good sense wasn’t such a good average. And what made me think I had good sense? I’d spent the morning worrying with the other two.

Nevertheless, I went into my bedroom and got the little velvet bag from my nightstand. I squeezed it slightly and felt it give.

“Here,” I said, handing it to Sister who was waiting by the back door. “Yuck.”

“Thanks. And I really don’t think you’d have been arrested.”

I slammed the door behind her.

In November I had gotten an early Christmas present from Fred, an IBM Thinkpad. We had been gone for two weeks on our trip to Warsaw, so I had only had about a month to work with it. Just long enough to see the world that had been opened up for me.

Now, still fuming, I sat crosslegged on the bed and turned on the computer. Under WHITE PAGES, I typed Gadsden’s regional area. Then I typed HOLDEN CRAWFORD. And there it was: HOLDEN R. CRAWFORD, R. R. 1, BOX 77, STEELE, AL. The phone number was also listed. Hot damn. So simple it was unbelievable.

I hadn’t learned how to do the atlas on the Internet, so I went into the den and pulled down the Rand McNally. Steele. Near Gadsden. That town sounded familiar. I turned to the Alabama map, found Gadsden easily, and slightly southwest, Steele on Chandler Mountain. No wonder it had sounded familiar. The Steele exit was where we left 1–59 when we went to arts-and-crafts festivals at Horse Pens 40, an unusual rock formation on the crest of the mountain. Every spring and fall they have three-day country-mountain celebrations there with blue grass music, clogging, and sorghum sopping with biscuits as large as plates. I’d never been into the town, but it couldn’t be very large. Holden Crawford, I thought, should be easy to find.

“Good news,” I told Luke when he shuffled into the den a couple of hours later. “I found Holden Crawford’s address and phone number.”

“How?” He sank into Fred’s recliner. “You got any aspirin?”

“You wouldn’t believe what you can find on a computer.” I turned Oprah on mute, went into the kitchen, and came back with two aspirins and some water. “You need something to eat. These things will give you ulcers without food.”