In Chap­ter 137 of *All the Col­ors of the Dark*, Saint returns to Mon­ta Clare, bring­ing along a sense of nos­tal­gic rou­tine as she inter­acts with her grand­moth­er on the porch. The old woman alter­nates between play­ing the har­mon­i­ca and smok­ing a cig­a­rette, cre­at­ing a mix of humor and annoy­ance, draw­ing a swift rep­ri­mand from Saint when their noise dis­rupts the neighbor’s new baby. Dur­ing this time, Mon­ta Clare feels most alive when he lis­tens to Saint play the piano, a brief respite from his oth­er­wise monot­o­nous life.

As the first month goes by, Mon­ta Clare’s exis­tence hums along, kept vibrant by the com­pan­ion­ship of Saint and Sam­my. The relent­less snow hints at an impend­ing record-break­ing win­ter, with local chil­dren press­ing their faces to win­dows in antic­i­pa­tion of school clo­sures. With his parole con­di­tions hing­ing on find­ing work, Mon­ta Clare set­tles into a gallery job. Although his prospects dim, curi­ous vis­i­tors occa­sion­al­ly stop to admire his art, lead­ing to awk­ward exchanges where he redi­rects them to gal­leries with bet­ter offer­ings. Sam­my pep­pers their inter­ac­tions with humor, teas­ing Mon­ta Clare about the grow­ing tal­ly of his mount­ing finan­cial debt, now humor­ous­ly esti­mat­ed at two hun­dred and forty-sev­en thou­sand dol­lars.

Amidst the gallery’s atmos­phere, Mon­ta Clare watch­es the arrival of spring through the thaw­ing land­scape. On a vis­it to Green’s Con­ve­nience Store, he observes a young girl attempt­ing to steal a can­dy bar, shar­ing a moment of mis­chief when he cau­tions her against being caught. Their play­ful exchange leads him to demon­strate a stealthy tech­nique, fos­ter­ing an unex­pect­ed con­nec­tion.

As he reflects, Mon­ta Clare’s mem­o­ries are stirred by a moment in the alley, par­tic­u­lar­ly when he spots spring flow­ers break­ing through the con­crete. His atten­tion shifts to a near­by dress­mak­er’s shop, where his gaze falls upon Misty Mey­er, stand­ing with her moth­er. Despite her hat con­ceal­ing much of her fea­tures, the sight of her del­i­cate neck and slen­der waist cap­ti­vates him. When she turns to face him, he finds him­self momen­tar­i­ly enchant­ed, recall­ing the way her smile has the pow­er to sus­pend time and alter his real­i­ty.