Chap­ter 70 opens with Patch hunched over a book on a qui­et bus ride. The small-town library in Pecaut had offered him a mod­est collection—Modern Art, Cityscapes, and Real­iz­ing Por­trait. He flips pages slow­ly, absorb­ing the brush tech­niques and tonal prin­ci­ples with a kind of devo­tion, each word a tiny key to unlock­ing a face he can­not for­get. On every bus, he stud­ies under the hum of flick­er­ing lights, look­ing for hints on how to bet­ter cap­ture emo­tion, loss, and mem­o­ry on can­vas. The books become com­pan­ions, even men­tors, in a jour­ney that’s becom­ing more spir­i­tu­al than logis­ti­cal.

When he reach­es Lewisville, a town stitched togeth­er with cracked side­walks and brick store­fronts, Patch walks the streets with a qui­et mis­sion. Posters in hand, he tapes one onto a street­lamp, then moves toward a weath­ered bar­ber shop. A cop stops him with sus­pi­cion. But when he sees the artwork—a girl ren­dered in soft graphite lines, look­ing just over her shoul­der with haunt­ed eyes—the officer’s demeanor changes. Patch explains it’s not a miss­ing per­son poster in the usu­al sense, though it lists a con­tact for the Mon­ta Clare Police Depart­ment. Chief Nix, lat­er over­whelmed by crank calls trig­gered by these fly­ers, does­n’t share Patch’s qui­et opti­mism.

He moves from town to town—Le Mas­co, Afton, Sad­dlers Clay, and Lenard Creek. Many of these places are more mem­o­ry than map, bare­ly marked by high­way signs or open shops. Along the way, Patch makes a brief stop to see Nor­ma, who offers him a ride and men­tions her grand­daugh­ter. Norma’s eyes hint at deep­er con­cern. She tells him the girl has been skip­ping school, haunt­ed by some­thing unspo­ken. At Loess Hills, where the bus veers from its usu­al route, Nor­ma asserts her­self with calm author­i­ty, brush­ing off an old­er man’s com­plaints with prac­ticed indif­fer­ence. The world they pass seems to blur, but for Patch, each town holds the poten­tial of a new clue, or a new mem­o­ry redis­cov­ered.

Dar­by Falls feels both famil­iar and alien as Patch approach­es the Mon­trose home. Richie Mon­trose, weath­ered by time and sor­row, answers the door with the soft shuf­fle of some­one expect­ing noth­ing. The house smells faint­ly of beer and dust. The liv­ing room is in dis­ar­ray, lit­tered with emp­ty cans and the sta­t­ic buzz of a base­ball game on an old TV. Richie’s voice is low, hes­i­tant. He asks why Patch is there. The name “Cal­lie” hangs in the air between them. Patch doesn’t claim certainty—only a deep, aching hope.

Richie final­ly lets Patch into Callie’s old room. It’s untouched. The room feels paused in time, as if Cal­lie might walk back in at any moment. There are posters on the wall, notes scrib­bled and stuck to a mir­ror, and a stuffed bear on the edge of the bed. Patch moves slow­ly through the space, tak­ing it all in. Every item is a bread­crumb, and he fol­lows them with care, look­ing for echoes of the girl who once laughed there. He asks Richie small questions—what music Cal­lie liked, who her clos­est friends were—but Richie’s answers are fogged by grief.

Down­stairs, a John­ny Cash record starts spin­ning on an old turntable. Patch hears the first few lines and stops. The sound cuts through him like mem­o­ry often does—soft at first, then full of weight. He stands there, lis­ten­ing, absorb­ing the music like it’s anoth­er clue. In that voice, he hears every­thing he can’t say out loud—loss, long­ing, and a qui­et deter­mi­na­tion to keep going. Patch clos­es his eyes briefly. He can almost see Grace’s face again, not in the posters or paint­ings, but in the frag­ments of emo­tion that rise unex­pect­ed­ly.

By the end of Chap­ter 70, Patch doesn’t find a res­o­lu­tion. But what he gains is some­thing more subtle—a qui­et affir­ma­tion that his path, how­ev­er wind­ing, mat­ters. Each poster, each knock on a stranger’s door, adds weight to the invis­i­ble thread that binds the miss­ing and those still search­ing. Even in the silence that fol­lows the music, Patch finds resolve. He steps back onto the porch, into the gray after­noon light, car­ry­ing Callie’s mem­o­ry with him like one more col­or on his palette. His work, though incom­plete, is far from over.