“Excuse me,” Junie said. “Do you know how to get to the mental hospital?” She said it firmly, like there was nothing to be ashamed about. “We’re going to see my dad.”

Thirty

THE HOSPITAL WAS AN OLD STONE BUILDING, THREE stories high, that looked like someplace the Addams Family might live. There was a rolling lawn out front, with benches scattered under the trees and a few people walking around.

Nate kept his eye out for a tall, thin figure of a man, but no one looked familiar.

“You sure you’re ready?” he asked Junie when they’d climbed the hospital steps and he’d pushed open the door.

“Yes.”

“You’re a brave girl,” Nate told her.

“And you’re a great driver.”

Inside there was a woman reading a book at a desk.

“We’re here to see Carl Chance. I think he’s a patient here.”

The woman looked over the top of her glasses at the two of them. Until this moment Nate had not considered his sister’s outfit. She was wearing the top to her / Dream of Jeannie pajamas, printed to look like a harem outfit, her Brownie skirt, bright red tights, and Keds that used to be white. Around her neck, as usual, were a couple of her necklaces. Luckily, Nate was more conservatively dressed.

For a moment he imagined that the woman was reaching under the desk for some secret button that alerted security to the presence of unaccompanied children who had stolen a vehicle to come see their father. He pictured large men marching in from the recesses of the hallway—or women, in nurse uniforms, with hypodermic needles— ready to carry them away to some padded cell. We’ve got a few more from that crazy Chance family one of them would say. You know where to put them, the head nurse would answer, and they’d exchange knowing glances. The electric shock room.

But the woman only flipped through the pages of her pad. “That would be the second floor. He might be in the sunroom right around now. You’re with your mother, I suppose?”

“Yes,” Nate said. Not even blinking. “She’s in the ladies’ room. We’ll just go on ahead.”

It was easy enough to locate the sunroom. All you had to do was follow the shaft of sunlight coming from the far end of the long corridor. As they passed the patients’ rooms, they could hear sounds on the other side of the doors—yelling, once, and another time, whimpering. But the sunroom looked surprisingly cheerful, with tables set up, a couple of checkers games under way, two or three people entertaining visitors, and others watching television. Andy Griffith was on, not that Junie noticed. She had spotted their father.

He was sitting alone, in a chair by the window. Even from the back, they knew it was him.