All the Colors of the Dark — Chapter 135

135

Patch strolled when the town eased quiet and soft snowfall froze solid. He avoided Main Street, kept his head low, and breathed that free air so deep his chest burned with the cool. In prison he’d sat with an old man named Terrence Roots in the weeks leading up to his release, might have served the full fourteen years had Saint not shown at the parole hearings, smart in her suit, impressive with her title. Patch had not left his cell, but Roots broke it all down, and then prepared him for re-entry, like he was about to tear through an atmosphere so inhospitable he would likely seek solace in a return.

He was taught of seeking mentors, core relationships, locating resources, and serving others. Roots spoke of developing daily routines, like the couple of thousand days of habit had not ingrained. Finding help, avoiding trouble. Patch nodded when he had to, wrote down what needed writing down, did not tell the man, or the judge or the parole officer, that they need not worry about him, that his purpose had died hard that first year, as he lay awake each night on his bunk, reached out his hand but could not find her at all. He had mourned her death quietly and completely.

Saint phoned each evening, and he made enough time to tell her he was doing just fine, smiled as he spoke because one of the men he bunked with agreed you could, in fact, hear a smile.

He worked the driveway, cut a path in the ice then began cracking it down with the heel of his boot.

Saint stocked his freezer with dishes and clear instructions of how to heat each of them. He ate fried chicken, salmon patties, meatloaf, smothered pork chops, and banana pudding.

Sammy showed with another bottle, this one a 1950 Martell Very Old Pale. He poured two glasses and drank both down, then opened a bottle of Courvoisier for Patch and finished off the Martell himself.

“You wouldn’t taste it right with your waxen prison tongue.”

So drunk was he, Patch helped him back to the gallery, his first trip onto Main Street, which had not changed all that much since he had been away.

A couple of stores exchanged for newer models he did not know. He pulled his collar up and stepped through the door as Sammy collapsed into a scroll wingback and passed out cold.

It was only when Patch turned the harsh lights on that he saw them.

Each girl against the brickwork, framed and hung with such care and flair for a long time he did not move, just stared like they had been dredged from a long sunken shipwreck of memory. He walked around, afraid to cast an echo, fourteen again. Sammy had not parted with them, had not made space for paintings he could sell. Patch moved from Anna May to Lucy Williams, Ellen Hernandez to Mya Levane. Only at Eloise Strike did he stop and stare into her eyes and search out his Grace. And at Callie Montrose did he reach out and stop just short of stroking her hair.

For two hours he moved through prints that spoke of more than a decade of his life. And then he saw the sack of mail, sent to the gallery that held his paintings, from the parents of the missing, desperate to reach him.

He grabbed a silk twill blanket, the diamante print from some fabled Italian archive, and gently draped it over his friend.

“You did a good thing, Sam. But it’s over now.”

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