In Chap­ter 161 of “All the Col­ors of the Dark,” the nar­ra­tive unfolds dur­ing a crisp morn­ing when Patch answers the Mey­ers’ phone, learn­ing that Char­lotte has cut school. He takes it upon him­self to cov­er for her, inform­ing her teacher she has fall­en ill. He sets out through Mon­ta Clare to locate her, main­tain­ing a sense of calm as he sends Sam­my to search high­er up the streets.

Patch even­tu­al­ly dis­cov­ers Char­lotte alone by the lake, where she is engaged in the qui­et act of strip­ping leaves from a sun­flower and float­ing them onto the water. They exchange a greet­ing, and Patch shares a nos­tal­gic admis­sion: he used to skip school in the same way at her age. How­ev­er, Char­lotte insists she’s not cut­ting but has made a delib­er­ate choice, assert­ing her auton­o­my with, “It’s not prison.” Their con­ver­sa­tion reveals a deep­er ten­sion as Patch probes her feel­ings about her moth­er, per­haps hint­ing at a fear she may har­bor.

Char­lotte defends her mother’s beau­ty and ques­tions Patch’s pres­ence in their lives, stat­ing that her moth­er chose him, a fact that seems to baf­fle her. Patch reflects on his past strug­gles, nar­rat­ing how his pover­ty made him hard to love, a truth Char­lotte echoes blunt­ly. When the con­ver­sa­tion turns philo­soph­i­cal, Patch asks if she believes in God, and she denies it, cre­at­ing a rift of under­stand­ing between them.

Char­lot­te’s emo­tion­al charge cul­mi­nates in a painful dec­la­ra­tion: she will nev­er accept Patch as a father, empha­siz­ing her refusal to show any affec­tion or con­nec­tion towards him. Patch acknowl­edges her sen­ti­ments but offers lit­tle in response. Their exchange high­lights the stark real­i­ties of their rela­tion­ship dynamic—Charlotte’s resent­ment and inde­pen­dence jux­ta­posed with Patch’s long­ing for con­nec­tion. After their con­fronta­tion, Char­lotte walks toward home, and Patch remains behind, choos­ing to fol­low at a dis­tance, both pro­tec­tive and respect­ful of her space, aware of the emo­tion­al thresh­old that remains unbridged between them.