Chap­ter 198 of All the Col­ors of the Dark begins with a sense of mount­ing ten­sion as Saint, sit­ting at din­ner, becomes vis­i­bly dis­tressed. Her unease stems from a phone call she receives from Mrs. Mey­er, who express­es con­cern over the behav­ior of the Leave­sham boy. The sug­ges­tion that he may have pur­chased some­thing inap­pro­pri­ate, like con­doms or seda­tives, inten­si­fies Saint’s anx­i­ety, mak­ing her feel that some­thing is seri­ous­ly wrong. As the evening pro­gress­es, her unease grows into a qui­et des­per­a­tion, man­i­fest­ing in her pac­ing the room and repeat­ed­ly mak­ing calls, try­ing to track down Char­lotte and get a bet­ter under­stand­ing of what might be hap­pen­ing. Her frus­tra­tion is com­pound­ed by the gnaw­ing fear that she is miss­ing some­thing impor­tant. After a tense peri­od of search­ing, Saint final­ly uncov­ers the Leave­shams’ address, fuel­ing her deter­mi­na­tion to con­front what­ev­er is unfold­ing with Char­lotte. The weight of this sit­u­a­tion, and her inabil­i­ty to imme­di­ate­ly act, press­es heav­i­ly on Saint, cre­at­ing a sense of urgency that she can’t shake off.

When Saint arrives at the Leave­shams’ res­i­dence, the worst of her fears is real­ized. She finds Char­lotte and Matt in a com­pro­mis­ing posi­tion, con­firm­ing the sus­pi­cions that had been grow­ing in her mind. Fueled by a mix­ture of anger and con­cern, Saint con­fronts them force­ful­ly, demand­ing an expla­na­tion. Her words are sharp, and the emo­tion­al inten­si­ty of the moment fills the air. Lat­er, when she tracks Char­lotte down on Cot­ter­ham Avenue, the con­fronta­tion between them becomes even more heat­ed. Char­lotte, clear­ly irri­tat­ed and resis­tant to Saint’s author­i­ty, snaps back, telling her blunt­ly that she is not her moth­er and has no right to inter­vene in her life. Saint, already emo­tion­al­ly raw from the events of the evening, reacts impul­sive­ly, remark­ing that she’s actu­al­ly grate­ful she isn’t Charlotte’s moth­er. The words are harsh, and as soon as they leave her mouth, Saint regrets them deeply, real­iz­ing that in her frus­tra­tion, she has only deep­ened the divide between them. This exchange marks a turn­ing point in their rela­tion­ship, high­light­ing the deep rift that exists between them and the emo­tion­al walls that have been built up over time.

As the argu­ment con­tin­ues, Char­lotte, in her anger, accus­es Saint of liv­ing a point­less life and com­pares her own sit­u­a­tion to Saint’s, imply­ing that Saint has no real pur­pose or mean­ing­ful con­nec­tion in the world. This accu­sa­tion stings, but it also caus­es Saint to pause and reflect. In a moment of vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty, Saint opens up about the trau­mat­ic expe­ri­ences of her past, reveal­ing that she had suf­fered abuse from her ex-hus­band, Jim­my, a rev­e­la­tion that shocks Char­lotte. Saint’s admis­sion of the vio­lence she endured—physical and emotional—reveals the depth of her pain and pro­vides con­text for her behav­ior. She con­fess­es that, despite her role as a law enforce­ment offi­cer, she still fears the return of the vio­lence that marked her past, a vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty she’s nev­er ful­ly shared with any­one before. The raw hon­esty in her words leaves Char­lotte silent for a moment, as she process­es the grav­i­ty of what Saint has just shared. This inti­mate moment shifts the dynam­ic between them, and for the first time, Char­lotte begins to see her moth­er fig­ure in a dif­fer­ent light. The con­ver­sa­tion, how­ev­er, doesn’t resolve the under­ly­ing ten­sion. Instead, it deep­ens the com­plex­i­ty of their rela­tion­ship, leav­ing both women in a state of emo­tion­al tur­moil. As Saint speaks her truth, Char­lotte begins to soft­en, but the dam­age done by their harsh words is far from repaired. The emo­tion­al weight of the sit­u­a­tion grows as they stand in the after­math of the con­fronta­tion, the silence between them heavy with the unspo­ken truths of their lives. Even­tu­al­ly, unable to process the emo­tions at the sur­face, Char­lotte runs away, leav­ing Saint stand­ing in the qui­et after­math. The chap­ter ends with the unre­solved ten­sion lin­ger­ing in the air, cap­tur­ing the com­plex­i­ty of their frac­tured rela­tion­ship. Themes of trau­ma, shame, and emo­tion­al pain are cen­tral to this chap­ter, all set against the back­drop of a small town where everyone’s busi­ness is inter­twined. The emo­tion­al con­fronta­tion serves as a cat­a­lyst for change, yet also marks the begin­ning of a painful jour­ney of under­stand­ing, one that may nev­er ful­ly come to fruition.