Chap­ter 189 of All the Col­ors of the Dark begins with Police Chief Saint seat­ed at her desk at the Mon­ta Clare Police Depart­ment when a famil­iar call comes in. Mil­dred, the principal’s sec­re­tary, reach­es out with urgency in her voice regard­ing a school-relat­ed inci­dent. As Saint lis­tens, Deputy Michaels—a sharp and earnest young officer—passes her an update, mir­ror­ing the youth­ful ener­gy she once had. Her con­nec­tion with Mil­dred is a warm one, built on small ges­tures like bring­ing over baked goods, a qui­et bridge between duty and human­i­ty. These sim­ple rit­u­als hint at Saint’s endur­ing effort to stay ground­ed in a town where every­one remem­bers each other’s past. Though her posi­tion com­mands author­i­ty, she walks a fine line between being respect­ed and being judged for choic­es made long ago, espe­cial­ly those tied to Jim­my Wal­ters.

Step­ping into the bright hush of ear­ly spring, Saint takes in the rhythm of Mon­ta Clare. She watch­es Mitch Evans putting the fin­ish­ing touch­es on a fresh­ly paint­ed sign, a sym­bol of sea­son­al renew­al clash­ing with stub­born marks of van­dal­ism still left behind. In years past, Saint had hand­ed scrub brush­es to teenage trou­ble­mak­ers, ensur­ing they cleaned the graf­fi­ti with their own hands—a firm but fair les­son that earned her qui­et respect in town. Her approach to jus­tice blends strength with empa­thy, though she remains painful­ly aware that whis­pers still fol­low her name, tan­gled in sto­ries of loss and scan­dal. As she heads to Mon­ta Clare High School, the famil­iar weight of respon­si­bil­i­ty returns, heav­ier with each step toward anoth­er con­fronta­tion she didn’t ask for, but can­not avoid.

Inside the school office, Saint lis­tens as Char­lotte, now fac­ing sus­pen­sion, tells her side of the sto­ry with a clenched jaw and sharp eyes. The teen explains she lashed out at Noah Arnold-Smith after he crossed a boundary—grabbing her inap­pro­pri­ate­ly in a hall­way, prompt­ing her instinc­tive reac­tion. While admin­is­tra­tors see a girl with a tem­per, Saint rec­og­nizes some­thing far deep­er: a young woman who feels unheard, unsafe, and already tired of jus­ti­fy­ing her right to draw lines. As Saint process­es Charlotte’s anger, her own mem­o­ries flash—awkward boys push­ing lim­its, the dis­com­fort, the help­less­ness she once buried. She doesn’t excuse the vio­lence, but she doesn’t ignore the rea­son behind it either. Empa­thy tem­pers her judg­ment, even as pro­ce­dure demands a sus­pen­sion.

Charlotte’s frus­tra­tion spills into talk of her grand­moth­er, whose dis­ap­point­ment she dreads, and her long­ing to escape Mon­ta Clare alto­geth­er. She talks about Las Vegas like it’s a promised land where rein­ven­tion is still pos­si­ble. In her voice, there’s a yearn­ing to break free from lega­cy, from the weight of expec­ta­tions stitched into her iden­ti­ty by peo­ple who don’t ful­ly see her. Saint under­stands that feel­ing too well. Her own ado­les­cence was shaped by defi­ance, by a desire to carve a life out­side the shad­ow of her mis­takes. Now, she watch­es Char­lotte tread a sim­i­lar path—brash, wound­ed, hope­ful.

Lat­er that day, Saint joins Char­lotte at Misty’s grave, a place heavy with mem­o­ry and silence. The ceme­tery is still, the air thick with the unspo­ken pain that threads through both their lives. Char­lotte stares down at the grave, arms crossed, eyes cloud­ed, try­ing to express a feel­ing that doesn’t quite fit into words. She con­fess­es that she’s tired of being mis­un­der­stood, of always car­ry­ing the blame for being too loud, too emo­tion­al, too much. Saint lis­tens, her own grief for Misty mir­rored in Charlotte’s dis­il­lu­sion­ment. Nei­ther of them says every­thing, but their silence speaks of the frag­ile bond slow­ly grow­ing between them.

The final moments of the chap­ter are steeped in reflec­tion. Saint walks Char­lotte back through town, her mind cir­cling the idea of legacy—what we inher­it and what we pass on. Charlotte’s fierce inde­pen­dence is a mir­ror to Saint’s own youth, but it also serves as a warn­ing. The choic­es made now will shape more than just a future; they will deter­mine the kind of women they become. Saint isn’t just a cop in Mon­ta Clare. She’s a thread in its gen­er­a­tional sto­ry, try­ing to mend what’s torn with­out unrav­el­ing every­thing else in the process.

This chap­ter presents a qui­et but pow­er­ful med­i­ta­tion on pro­tec­tion, iden­ti­ty, and the lim­its of con­trol. It’s not just about a sus­pend­ed teen or a town with long memories—it’s about the endur­ing fight to believe in redemp­tion when every­one seems to remem­ber only the mis­takes. Through Saint and Char­lotte, we wit­ness the slow, often painful work of reclaim­ing one’s place in the world, not just as sur­vivors of trau­ma, but as women deter­mined to break the cycles that near­ly broke them.