All the Colors of the Dark — Chapter 171

171

In the room he took a blanket from the closet and placed it in front of the door. He checked the windows were locked then lay down. His head beside a valance that smelled of dust as he checked his daughter and knew she should not be there.

The phone rang and he answered before it could disturb her.

The neighbor had found a forwarding address for the Carters. He wrote it down. It took ten minutes to find out they were unlisted.

North Dakota was eight hours at least.

In the stars he saw everything written and did not know how to change the fading script. He had seen things entirely beautiful. Fall on the Kancamagus Highway, the tear blue of Crater Lake. Sunrise over Lake Tahoe, two million years to carve out its place. Sunset over a spring Skagit Valley, the tulips absolute in each shade. He had stood beneath the two- thousand-yard canopy of Angel Oak. And each of those times he had been reminded that it was not God’s work, for alongside each of those sights he had seen missing faces and shelled souls.

Patch knew right then he had reached his last crossroad.

For much of the night he played out the first half of his life.

He’d thought it had led him nowhere good.

But it had led him to Charlotte.

And as the earth rotated enough, and their cheap motel entered the first washes of sunlight, he took the address, tore it in half and tossed it into the trash.

“I have room for you,” he said, so quiet she did not stir.

Right then he knew he had found his daughter.

And he had lost Grace.

OceanofPDF.com