In Chap­ter 102 of “All the Col­ors of the Dark,” we meet Wal­ter Strike, a man bear­ing the marks of his­to­ry and per­son­al loss, as he walks with Patch. He car­ries a cane and a limp, shar­ing the saga of his ancestors—those who fought in the Rev­o­lu­tion­ary War and a seces­sion­ist gov­ern­ment advo­cat­ing for fierce inde­pen­dence. As they stroll amidst the pic­turesque back­drop of Vir­gini­a’s moun­tains, Wal­ter reflects on a time when he believed they could rely sole­ly on them­selves.

Wal­ter shares painful mem­o­ries of his daugh­ter, Eloise, who went miss­ing at fif­teen. The frus­tra­tion with law enforce­ment lingers in his voice as he recounts how they dis­missed Eloise’s youth, treat­ing her as an adult. Engaged in con­ver­sa­tion, they pass a woman speak­ing in the vibrant Gul­lah lan­guage, high­light­ing the cul­tur­al rich­ness around them—a stark con­trast to Wal­ter’s haunt­ing mem­o­ries. Patch lis­tens atten­tive­ly, try­ing to piece togeth­er Grace’s sto­ry from frag­ments of rec­ol­lec­tions and miss­ing pieces.

The nar­ra­tive unfolds at Mid­dle­ton Place, a plan­ta­tion along the Ash­ley Riv­er, where ele­gance stark­ly con­trasts Wal­ter’s sor­row. He recounts the day Eloise van­ished and how the search led to murky black water swamps. Stand­ing by a gaze­bo, they observe a hap­py cou­ple tak­ing pic­tures, and it becomes painful­ly clear that Wal­ter will nev­er wit­ness his daughter’s wed­ding or share in her joy.

Walter’s son, Coop, lost his path after Eloise’s dis­ap­pear­ance, opt­ing for a qui­et life as a librar­i­an, sug­gest­ing the pro­found effect of loss on famil­ial bonds. As the day dwin­dles, Patch’s unease sur­faces when Wal­ter prompts an acknowl­edg­ment of good­byes, prompt­ing reflec­tive thoughts on the many haunt­ing faces of the miss­ing Patch has seen in his life’s work.

Walter’s poignant words res­onate deeply—they are left with the harsh real­i­ty that while the world may not be enough to aid in their search, their indi­vid­ual sto­ries remain sig­nif­i­cant. The con­clu­sion of their day togeth­er rein­forces the impor­tance of con­nec­tion amidst grief, leav­ing Patch with a last­ing impres­sion of Walter’s strug­gle and the shared human­i­ty in their expe­ri­ences of loss and remem­brance.