In Chap­ter 142 of “All the Col­ors of the Dark,” Misty and a com­pan­ion embark on a reflec­tive jour­ney, pur­chas­ing a bot­tle of wine from Green’s and mak­ing their way to a hill­side over­look­ing Mon­ta Clare and the moun­tains. As they set­tle on the grass, Misty seeks reas­sur­ance about their past love, empha­siz­ing the impor­tance of this acknowl­edg­ment.

Amidst the nat­ur­al back­drop, Misty shiv­ers, prompt­ing her com­pan­ion to com­fort her with a warm embrace. Their con­ver­sa­tion takes a deep­er turn as she inquires about his life, lead­ing him to nar­rate a tumul­tuous past marked by hard­ship. He shares a har­row­ing expe­ri­ence of being shot at in a bank and ulti­mate­ly serv­ing a twelve-year prison sen­tence, nar­row­ly escap­ing a harsh­er fate due to the inter­ven­tion of a com­pas­sion­ate guard.

He describes the grim real­i­ties of prison life, recall­ing nights spent in iso­la­tion, wit­ness­ing the after­math of vio­lence, and shar­ing close quar­ters with fel­low inmates in com­mu­nal bath­rooms. His dai­ly rou­tine involved work­ing in the penitentiary’s indus­tri­al laun­dry, where he not only labored with machin­ery but also grap­pled with the monot­o­ny of the insti­tu­tion­al meal sched­ules. Food became mere sus­te­nance after numer­ous cycles of bland offer­ings.

Amidst these strug­gles, thoughts of Grace con­sumed him dur­ing his incar­cer­a­tion. He rem­i­nisces about the first two years fol­low­ing her loss, fill­ing his evenings with the lit­er­a­ture she cher­ished. These books became a means of escape, trans­port­ing him to dif­fer­ent worlds where he reflect­ed on themes of love, loss, and inno­cence — from the painful love of Heath­cliff to Hold­en Caulfield­’s cri­tique of soci­etal phoni­ness. How­ev­er, the true weight of his grief sur­faced dur­ing sleep­less nights, when he deeply missed Grace, Saint, and Misty.

In a moment of vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty, Misty asks if he ever paint­ed again, to which he responds that he had lost the moti­va­tion to cre­ate. Express­ing sor­row over Grace’s absence, he reveals a desire to vis­it Thur­ley State Park, a place tied to their shared mem­o­ries and one that he feels com­pelled to see despite know­ing he may not find clo­sure. Misty encour­ages him to take that jour­ney, sug­gest­ing they go togeth­er to con­front the past.