In Chap­ter 177 of “All the Col­ors of the Dark,” Patch finds him­self out­side a gallery locat­ed in a red brick build­ing on Woost­er Street, amidst a bustling crowd observ­ing his art­work. He takes a moment of soli­tude to reflect on the two hun­dred guests who seem to know him but whom he does not rec­og­nize. Char­lotte has col­lab­o­rat­ed with Sam­my, pre­sent­ing ear­ly sketch­es of his that evoke a sense of embar­rass­ment in him, as they depict his ear­ly learn­ing phase as an artist. The art­works, dis­played under the names of miss­ing girls—each titled sim­ply by their first names—soften the harsh­ness of their sto­ries, invit­ing curios­i­ty but offer­ing only brief notes about their lives.

As Patch grap­ples with the over­whelm­ing atten­tion on his work, he wit­ness­es a woman from Sacra­men­to pur­chas­ing one of his sketch­es, which was cre­at­ed dur­ing a par­tic­u­lar­ly des­per­ate night. When asked why she admires it, she artic­u­lates that he trans­forms tragedy into beau­ty, a sen­ti­ment he can­not accept. Leav­ing the gallery area, he glimpses his daugh­ter Saint, radi­ant in a pink dress rem­i­nis­cent of her moth­er. This sight invokes a pang of nos­tal­gia and loss for Misty, whose mem­o­ry con­tin­ues to haunt him.

Their inter­ac­tion is ten­der but tinged with Patch’s ongo­ing strug­gles with self-iden­ti­ty and grief. Saint, sup­port­ive yet con­cerned, notices him slip­ping away from the crowd dur­ing his own exhi­bi­tion. Their con­ver­sa­tion reveals Patch’s feel­ings of act­ing out roles rather than embrac­ing life ful­ly. He longs for a dif­fer­ent ending—a peace­ful escape far away, sug­gest­ing visions of a beach or a ship, while their whim­si­cal ban­ter pro­vides a tem­po­rary respite from their shared sor­row.

As they dis­cuss the valid­i­ty of loss and mem­o­ry, Patch’s fix­a­tion on a spe­cif­ic paint­ing titled “Grace Num­ber One” sur­faces; he express­es his refusal to sell it, indi­cat­ing its deep per­son­al sig­nif­i­cance. Despite the heav­i­ness of their past haunt­ing them, a light moment emerges as Saint reveals she still plays the piano, let­ting Patch take solace in the con­ti­nu­ity of their con­nec­tion through sim­ple joys. The chap­ter clos­es with them embrac­ing, offer­ing a glimpse of hope amid Patch’s com­pli­cat­ed emo­tions and an acknowl­edg­ment of the people—like his daughter—who give him rea­sons to be grate­ful.