In Chap­ter 103 of All the Col­ors of the Dark, Patch begins his day by rob­bing the South Atlantic Bank, hold­ing a gun to the young teller as he fills his bag with cash. After man­ag­ing to evade the police on Inter­state 95, he reflects on his life and real­izes that his sin­gle regret pales in com­par­i­son to the many mis­for­tunes oth­ers face. Despite the dark nature of his actions, Patch choos­es to donate the major­i­ty of the stolen mon­ey to the Har­vey Robin Foun­da­tion, a char­i­ta­ble orga­ni­za­tion that oper­ates across sev­er­al south­ern states. The foun­da­tion aids com­mu­ni­ties in need, sup­port­ing vital projects that improve lives in dif­fi­cult cir­cum­stances. The con­trast between his crim­i­nal act and the foundation’s mis­sion serves as a reminder of Patch’s com­pli­cat­ed moral land­scape and the choic­es he has made in his life.

Even though Patch has paint­ed por­traits for two fam­i­lies and sent the com­plet­ed can­vas­es to Sam­my, he feels increas­ing­ly detached from his pre­vi­ous life. He no longer feels a strong con­nec­tion to his home, unsure of where he tru­ly belongs. Though he still owns a house in Mon­ta Clare, Patch con­tem­plates sell­ing it, yet it remains a sym­bol of his past, a teth­er to a life that now feels dis­tant. After a month of reflec­tion, Patch decides to leave Sil­ver­ton behind, relo­cat­ing to the Red Moun­tain Pass. His jour­ney takes him through Calf Creek Falls and Bryce Canyon, where he encoun­ters local fam­i­lies. Watch­ing their home videos, Patch feels the weight of nos­tal­gia that fills their homes, but as he watch­es, he can­not find a famil­iar face among the footage. This sense of dis­place­ment under­scores the emo­tion­al void he con­tin­ues to grap­ple with, a dis­con­nect from both his past and the peo­ple he once knew.

In the qui­et of the ear­ly morn­ing, Patch calls Saint, leav­ing a mes­sage that stirs a vivid mem­o­ry with­in him. The mem­o­ry of Grace’s voice, a unique sound she described as akin to a fin­ger­print, resur­faces in his mind. Patch is struck by her words, reflect­ing on the pro­found knowl­edge she pos­sessed about the world around her. As he lis­tens to his mes­sage, his mind wan­ders to Grace’s com­fort­ing words about the final cries of the dying. She had explained how these last moments, deeply per­son­al and inti­mate, reveal the essence of one’s life and strug­gles. Patch, con­tem­plat­ing her per­spec­tive, finds a sense of solace in the thought that even in death, there is a mean­ing­ful con­nec­tion to oth­ers, some­thing that res­onates with him as he con­tin­ues his jour­ney.

Patch’s trav­els take him from the Col­orado Riv­er to Sedona, where the land­scape shifts from dry dunes to lush pine forests, offer­ing a con­trast to the bar­ren stretch­es of land he has encoun­tered. The var­ied scenery marks the ongo­ing change in his life as he jour­neys through these regions, each offer­ing new reflec­tions on his past. Arriv­ing in Phoenix, he dri­ves along the Apache Trail and watch­es as a breath­tak­ing sun­rise illu­mi­nates the desert. The sight of the sun break­ing over the hori­zon offers Patch a moment of qui­et reflec­tion amidst his oth­er­wise chaot­ic jour­ney. At Mesa Verde, he attends mass, seek­ing a moment of humil­i­ty. In an unre­mark­able act of gen­eros­i­ty, he slips a hun­dred-dol­lar bill into the dona­tion plate. The woman seat­ed beside him, who is unaware of his action, serves as a reminder that small, unno­ticed acts of kind­ness can hold deep mean­ing, even when they go unseen by oth­ers.

Out­side the church, Patch encoun­ters a woman craft­ing a macramé wall hang­ing, sur­round­ed by addi­tion­al works and rosaries. The woman explains the pur­pose of the “chain of ros­es,” a set of prayer coun­ters used to reflect on three essen­tial mys­ter­ies: the joy­ful, glo­ri­ous, and sor­row­ful aspects of life. She shares that these chains are placed on the deceased as a way to pre­vent fur­ther death, offer­ing a sense of pro­tec­tion and clo­sure. Her words pro­voke deep reflec­tion in Patch, who con­sid­ers how life’s fragili­ty is embod­ied in these tra­di­tions and the sym­bols that accom­pa­ny them. As he lis­tens to her expla­na­tion, he con­tem­plates the vast­ness of exis­tence, the inter­con­nect­ed­ness of life and death, and how each individual’s sto­ry is marked by both joy and sor­row. This moment becomes a cat­a­lyst for Patch’s own reflec­tion on mor­tal­i­ty and the expe­ri­ences that have shaped his path. The woman’s wis­dom leads Patch to fur­ther con­tem­plate the nature of loss, mem­o­ry, and the impor­tance of con­nec­tion in a world that often feels uncer­tain.

This chap­ter serves as a piv­otal moment for Patch, where his jour­ney is not just a phys­i­cal one but an emo­tion­al and spir­i­tu­al quest. As he encoun­ters indi­vid­u­als who car­ry their own sto­ries of loss and hope, he is remind­ed of the shared human­i­ty that con­nects them all. Through his inter­ac­tions, Patch begins to con­front his own feel­ings of detach­ment and iso­la­tion, real­iz­ing that the answers he seeks may not be found in his trav­els alone but in the con­nec­tions he makes with oth­ers along the way.