Liv was sobering up, but she still wasn’t totally clearheaded. She lowered the car’s visor and looked at herself in the mirror. She smacked her own cheek lightly.
Noah returned to the car. “They’ve searched the grounds,” he said. “They think he must have slipped out after dinner, since the nurse saw him then.”
Liv shook her head.
“Chang said the last few times he wandered off, he went to your mom’s grave at the cemetery. They sent someone to check, but he wasn’t there. You have any ideas where he might go?”
Liv cataloged places of significance to her father: the cemetery, the house, maybe the plant.
“Apparently your dad was talking about your mom when they delivered his dinner. He said your mother had spent the last few days with him.”
Liv swallowed, realizing that her father had mistaken Liv for her mom. Everyone always said they looked so much alike.
“Charlie told the nurse that they were going on a date tonight,” Noah continued, “and they had to be careful since her father didn’t like him. Any idea where he used to take your mom?”
Liv gave him a fleeting smile. “I do.”
CHAPTER 40
It was another ten minutes before they made it to the overgrown lot. The landscape was bleak: a cement field in the middle of nowhere, the old-fashioned drive-in movie screen covered in graffiti, the speaker poles rusted and in disrepair, jutting from the ground. All shrouded in darkness save for the headlights of Noah’s Mercedes.
Noah eased into one of the spaces. The lot was eerie, apocalyptic.
“We had some days here, huh?” Noah said, breaking the quiet.
Liv didn’t respond, but felt her face redden. They’d had sex in the back of her dad’s station wagon at this very drive-in. During a Molly Ringwald movie. The theater had gone out of business soon thereafter. She didn’t think there was a connection.
She surveyed the area, looking for her father.
“Can you pull to the back?” She twisted around, looking behind them. “My dad said they used to park near the concession stand so her father wouldn’t see him.”
Noah slowly turned the car around. “Why’d your grandfather hate Charlie so much?”
Liv continued to look out the window. Weeds surrounded the lot, sprouting through cracks in the asphalt. “My dad always said her father correctly thought she was too good for him.” She smiled.
Then she saw something move in the distance. “There,” Liv said, pointing to a figure near the shuttered concession building.
Noah stopped the car, and Liv jumped out. Her father approached, his hand shielding his eyes from the headlamps.
“Dad!” Liv threw her arms around him.
She pulled back and looked at him, making sure he was all right. Her father squinted, blinked as if confused. He stared at her face for a long time, not saying anything.
“We were worried about you.”
Noah walked over.
Her father’s expression brightened with a burst of lucidity. “Eddie Haskell,” he said. In a surly tone, half playful, he added, “What in the hell are you doing out here in the middle of the night with my daughter?”
“I’m sorry, Charlie. How about we both get her home?” Noah walked to the vehicle and opened the back door.
Her father sauntered over. “All right. But I don’t want to see you out here again. She’s too good for you.”
After getting her father settled at the nursing home, Noah drove Liv back to Cindy’s house.
Before getting out of the car, Liv looked at him. “Thank you, again.”
“It’s nothing.”
“No, it means a lot. Especially after what I said to you the last time I was in Nebraska.”
“I deserved it.” He paused. “I was just going through a bad time. I thought Tommy looked so much like Kyle when he was little.”
“It’s okay. They’re both handsome boys.” She recalled the anger— the fear—when he’d asked her to do the test. She’d been back in Adair, dealing with another episode with her father. The documentary had just come out, and the town was riled up. The governor had refused to support Danny’s pardon, and Noah wanted a goddamned paternity test.
So she’d taken the test—told him she’d sent strands of Evan’s and Tommy’s hair off to an internet paternity testing company under a false name. It felt vile, like she was a guest on one of those awful talk shows where couples revealed the results of paternity tests on live television. When the results came back showing that Evan was the father, she emailed them to Noah. He’d asked that it be sent to a particular email address, one he’d likely made to keep any record of the discussion untraceable. Always the politician.