Patch sat with Saint on the rear deck, the char­coal grill cool­ing beside them, as a gen­tle breeze caused white ash to swirl. Ear­li­er that day, he had attend­ed the law offices of Jasper and Coates, both now marked by their wealth, dressed in tai­lored navy suits and acces­sorized with gold cuf­flinks and watch­es. Uncer­tain­ty loomed over him as he await­ed the rea­son for his sum­mons, shar­ing the wait­ing area with Mrs. Mey­er. Her grip on his hand reflect­ed a pro­found sor­row, indica­tive of a tragedy that had stripped her spir­it. She appeared a woman shat­tered by loss, her child’s absence weigh­ing heav­i­ly on her.

The pro­ceed­ings were swift. Misty had left her estate pri­mar­i­ly to her daugh­ter, with a minor dona­tion to char­i­ty; her trust was to be annulled and real­lo­cat­ed. How­ev­er, she bequeathed a pic­ture to Patch, a poignant reminder of their con­nec­tion. Jasper, the lawyer, cleared his throat and with­out fan­fare announced, “Char­lotte Mary Grace Mey­er will be left in the sole cus­tody of Joseph Hen­ry Macauley.”

As Patch sipped a beer, pon­der­ing, Saint returned from the kitchen, toss­ing away rem­nants of their meal. Sit­ting beside him, Saint com­ment­ed on Mrs. Meyer’s unspo­ken feel­ings about the cus­tody deci­sion. Patch shared that she like­ly antic­i­pat­ed this out­come, while Saint remarked on their grand­moth­er’s advanced age, high­light­ing her inabil­i­ty to pro­vide the vibrant life Char­lotte deserved. Their con­ver­sa­tion turned to the com­plex­i­ties of par­ent­ing, with Patch reflect­ing on Charlotte’s mis­steps and youth-relat­ed indis­cre­tions.

Saint point­ed out the dif­fer­ence between their expe­ri­ences: “Kids do stu­pid things,” she assert­ed light­ly, recall­ing a whim­si­cal time when she fash­ioned him a new eye from papi­er-mâché. The con­ver­sa­tion shift­ed deep­er; Patch con­sid­ered whether he was fit to take cus­tody of Char­lotte, aware of the dilap­i­dat­ed Mey­er house and the life it rep­re­sent­ed.

Despite Patch’s dis­com­fort, Saint urged him to under­stand their sit­u­a­tion bet­ter: “We all see you, Patch. To move for­ward, we must face the past.” This prompt­ed Patch to ques­tion what that meant for him, lead­ing Saint to sug­gest that Misty aimed to lib­er­ate him from his bur­dens. How­ev­er, Patch hes­i­tat­ed, uncer­tain about the free­dom thrust upon him—“What if I don’t want to be free?”

Saint implied that stay­ing in his cur­rent state would lead to stag­na­tion and despair. They dis­cussed the unsolved case of a girl from Okla­homa linked to Eli Aaron, whose untime­ly death left a haunt­ing void. Togeth­er, they lament­ed their lack of for­tune, with Saint dry­ly sug­gest­ing that breaks often arrive when one stops search­ing, prompt­ing Patch to muse on the pos­si­bil­i­ty of this lat­est girl being Grace, though he dis­missed his own hope.