All the Colors of the Dark

by Chris Whitaker

“How come you can do so much?” Saint said, as her grandmother fetched a block plane to smooth a wavelet. “You ever ask that question to your grandfather when he was alive?” Saint shook her head. Norma went on.

Saint shrugged. “Apparently Cupid sent him.” Once again Patch made an O with the forefinger and thumb of his left hand, before penetrating it with the index finger of his right. “Get off my property,” Norma said.

PATCH LMAO

“Why is your name Saint?” Her breath caught a little. “My grandparents named me.”

“They said I was every good thing, Patch. Can you believe that?” He turned his head to look at her. “Sure, I can. Entirely and absolutely.”

“That was dumb,” Saint said as she helped him to his feet and dabbed blood from his lip. “You’re all I’ve got,” he said. And she thought, I’m all you’ll need.

Her head buried in books that would somehow keep her link to him alive.

Saint heard she had lost her jobs, and that Kim had begun court proceedings to evict her. Saint broke open her piggybank and posted an envelope through Ivy’s door.

“I hate it when you cry,” he said. “You take your hand away, and you paint me smiling then. In the dark we’re always smiling. We’re all the same. We’re all well and happy and shining.” “I don’t know how to paint.” “Art is feeling, nothing more. You know how to feel, Patch.”

She was beautiful and hateful, thunderclouds and summer rain.

“I see you, Saint. I see the way you care. I see the way you close your eyes for a couple of seconds before you laugh. I see you try and hide your tooth when you smile. But you don’t need to, because you’re…because it’s a perfect smile.” “Jimmy—” “I know that…I know I’m not your first choice. But still, dance with me.” Saint glanced back once more, outside, to where Misty walked toward Patch. And she took Jimmy’s hand.

“I’ll pay you back,” Saint said, smiling widely. “You never ask for anything,” Norma said. “I once asked for bees, Grandma.” Saint kissed Norma’s cheek and hugged her tightly.

And with that Franklin reached into his pocket and took out the check and placed it on the table. “I will die grateful to you, Joseph. There’s so many things I can give you, but my daughter isn’t one of them.”

Gagged

So many cases, so many people doing bad things. They outnumber us a million to one. And that’s assuming we’re all good. Giving a man a badge and gun doesn’t mean you’ve given him the moral code to use either correctly. Masks, Saint. A suit and tie. A lab coat and scrubs. They’re just dressing.”

“Are you a pirate?” a small boy asked, as Patch headed past him into the post office to mail his work to Sammy. “I was,” Patch said, his smile reaching his words.

They spent the afternoon at Middleton Place, an Ashley River Plantation, the gardens so elegant Patch wondered how anything bad could have ever happened there.

CHS

“I miss you,” she whispered into his ear. “Every day,” he said. “There’s so much to say, Patch.” “But nothing that will change much of anything.”

kill me w yearning and sadness

At her car she hugged him tightly. She did not know a better man than Chief Nix.

“Anger is misplaced fear,”

“So he’s scared of the refrigerator?

Fort Sumter before dropping into the Charleston Harbor. In White Point Garden you can smell peach and violet.

Her hair was gold and reached her waist. Misty left them. Patch looked at his daughter, and she stared back coldly.

To face the past is to momentarily turn your back on what is now. And when you do that, you miss so damn much.”

“You don’t cry because it’s over, you smile that it happened,”

“You’ve got a daughter now. Take a little time for her. And when she doesn’t need you so much, you go on back to your search. And I wish you the best life. There isn’t a single person more deserving.”

He took a small wooden chair and placed it outside her door, sat and strained to hear her breathing change.

“Time changes our ability to view the things that hurt us.” “But not the pain.” “No. Not the pain.”

She felt the chill. “That’s how he chose them. He was doing God’s work. He chose penitent sinners. The pregnant girls who came to you for an abortion.”

To love and be loved was more than could ever be expected, more than enough for a thousand ordinary lifetimes. She did not understand that until then.

And while Charlotte visited with her mother, Saint took a little time to sit before Norma and Chief Nix. She did not pray much anymore. Though she still believed. Entirely and absolutely.