Chap­ter 21 of All the Col­ors of the Dark cap­tures a somber atmos­phere as Saint sits at the piano, play­ing Chopin, with her grand­moth­er, Nor­ma, qui­et­ly watch­ing from her rock­ing chair. The loss of Joseph Macauley con­tin­ues to affect Saint deeply, as she strug­gles with grief that man­i­fests in dis­rupt­ed eat­ing and sleep­ing pat­terns at school. She finds her­self often star­ing at the emp­ty chair where Joseph used to sit, unable to escape the weight of his absence. This emo­tion­al bur­den fills Saint’s every moment, from her iso­lat­ed mus­ings at the piano to her behav­ior at school, under­scor­ing how loss can dom­i­nate one’s thoughts and actions. Nor­ma, ever present, tries to pro­vide com­fort, but the grief remains a heavy, con­stant pres­ence in their lives.

The nar­ra­tive shifts when Saint, over­whelmed by the sad­ness and con­fu­sion of her emo­tions, locks her­self in the kitchen to brood over her thoughts about Joseph. Nor­ma, wor­ried about her, seeks help from Chief Nix, who brings in Doc­tor Tooms, the fam­i­ly physi­cian, to dis­cuss the trou­bling sit­u­a­tion. Although Doc­tor Tooms offers a sym­pa­thet­ic smile, it becomes clear that the weight of the case and the unre­solved ques­tions sur­round­ing Joseph’s dis­ap­pear­ance cre­ate a tense envi­ron­ment. This ten­sion is com­pound­ed when Saint, unable to let go, becomes fix­at­ed on watch­ing the Tooms fam­i­ly prop­er­ty with a spy tele­scope, a sign of her need to regain con­trol over a sit­u­a­tion that feels out of her hands. Her obses­sion with observ­ing the house high­lights the way grief can some­times dri­ve indi­vid­u­als to irra­tional actions, fur­ther com­pli­cat­ing her emo­tion­al tur­moil.

As time goes on, the reward for infor­ma­tion about Joseph’s dis­ap­pear­ance grows to two thou­sand dol­lars, but the media’s inter­est in the case begins to wane. In the midst of this, Saint becomes more aware of larg­er soci­etal issues, par­tic­u­lar­ly after read­ing about alarm­ing inci­dents such as vio­lence against women. These new real­iza­tions spark con­ver­sa­tions with Nor­ma about women’s rights, auton­o­my, and soci­etal con­trol over women’s bod­ies, expos­ing the gen­er­a­tional divide between them. Nor­ma’s views on these top­ics dif­fer from Saint’s grow­ing aware­ness of these issues, illus­trat­ing the clash between old­er, more tra­di­tion­al per­spec­tives and the evolv­ing views of the younger gen­er­a­tion. Through these dis­cus­sions, Saint begins to under­stand the broad­er soci­etal forces that shape her world, yet she feels dis­tanced from the con­ven­tion­al views her grand­moth­er holds, cre­at­ing an inter­nal con­flict that grows through­out the chap­ter.

As sum­mer fades into fall, Saint finds her­self wan­der­ing the woods, lost in a rest­less state that seems to invite dan­ger. Nor­ma, con­cerned for her well-being, sug­gests that Saint con­sid­er coun­sel­ing, but Saint dis­miss­es the idea, feel­ing dis­con­nect­ed from con­ven­tion­al solu­tions to her pain. She strug­gles with her iden­ti­ty and phys­i­cal appear­ance, unsure of how to rec­on­cile her inner tur­moil with the out­side world. Despite Norma’s attempts to guide her, Saint feels adrift, unsure of where to turn as she tries to nav­i­gate the com­plex emo­tions of grief, loss, and self-dis­cov­ery. Her behav­ior in the woods reflects a search for something—perhaps clar­i­ty, or sim­ply an escape from the over­whelm­ing weight of her thoughts. Yet, in reject­ing con­ven­tion­al meth­ods of cop­ing, Saint is left to con­front her chal­lenges alone, her iso­la­tion deep­en­ing.

The chap­ter also touch­es on the shift­ing dynam­ics with­in the com­mu­ni­ty, par­tic­u­lar­ly with Ivy Macauley, Joseph’s moth­er, vis­i­bly shat­tered by her own grief. The impact of pub­lic events, like Ronald Reagan’s pres­i­den­tial cam­paign, also col­ors Saint’s per­spec­tive, adding anoth­er lay­er of com­plex­i­ty to her world. These exter­nal events serve as a back­drop to Sain­t’s per­son­al strug­gles, high­light­ing how the world around her con­tin­ues to move for­ward, even as she remains stuck in a place of emo­tion­al paral­y­sis. The con­trast between the broad­er soci­etal changes and Saint’s inter­nal con­flict paints a vivid pic­ture of the tur­moil she feels. As the chap­ter con­cludes, Saint’s feel­ings of exis­ten­tial uncer­tain­ty inten­si­fy, leav­ing her at a cross­roads where the world around her shifts, but she remains caught between the past and the uncer­tain future that lies ahead. The weight of these expe­ri­ences leaves her ques­tion­ing not only the mean­ing of her grief but also her place in a world that seems increas­ing­ly dif­fi­cult to nav­i­gate.