All the Colors of the Dark — Chapter 76

76

Misty led him out into a yard that did not appear to have boundaries, just ran on forever, like they did not know limits of any kind.

There was a covered pool and a flowered pagoda and stone seats that faced a sculptured woman without arms. The two settled onto swings in the moonlit shadow of lush mountains beyond.

Her sandals lay in the grass, her calves gently flexed as she moved. He imagined the kind of parties they threw and the kind of boys she dated. He did not hate them, just did not dare to try and understand them.

“You want to come see me at dressage one time?” she said.

“I’m not sure what that is.”

“I make my horse dance.”

“Why?”

She shrugged and they sat quiet for a long time. “It’s hard, right?”

“It’s a dancing horse, Mist. Ain’t going to be easy going against nature like that.”

She shook her head. “I mean this part, the afterwards.”

He did not tell her it had been hard before, just in a different, more

manageable way.

“I never saw my father cry,” she said.

He watched the geometric shapes of her, the cones and spheres and cylinders, and he wondered which might also belong to Grace.

“That day when they came to the police station and he saw my face… and then later, when they thought I was sleeping because Dr. T gave me all those pills. I sat on the stairs and watched his shoulders shake as my mother pressed her cheek to his back.”

He said nothing because he knew that his role had already been played.

“It wasn’t anything, Patch. Not compared…”

Her perfect world might’ve once cracked but was not close to broken.

Right then he was glad. “You’ve done it now, Misty. You reached out and

I’m grateful and all…”

“But?”

She had infinity to lose.

“Each time you come sit with me. Talk to me. Notice me. It’s just a reminder that things aren’t right with your world.”

She shook her head.

Paint that clung beneath his nails.

“So what do I do?” she said, her voice holding.

“You eat lobster. And you sit on your swing.”

She looked over, so beautiful. “And then?”

He stopped swinging. “And then you go on back to your side of the street, Misty.”

Patch thanked the Meyers. And he told Misty good night.

And he knew that on Monday, when he sat on the fallen oak, she would not come and sit beside him.

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