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Summary

Fate, continued: Chapters 152–171

Patch meets Charlotte, and afterward sits outside with Misty. She tells him that Charlotte is spirited and smart, but that she steals things. Patch begs Misty not to tell the girl that he’s her father, and she agrees. Patch goes to confide in Sammy, who convinces him to sell some of his paintings, use the money to put down roots in Monta Clare, and help Misty raise their daughter. 

Patch tears down his old house and burns the debris. He rents excavators and bulldozers, intent on rebuilding a home from scratch by himself. All summer long he works on the house, rarely accepting help from architects and contractors brought in by Sammy. He still follows leads on Grace, but promises always to come back to Misty and their daughter. He bases the design of the house on how he imagines Grace’s childhood home, the big white house he once painted that Saint bought from him. By fall the house is complete, and Patch throws a welcome party for the whole town. Sammy christens it the Mad House, and after the party Patch sits with Misty, who tells him she is very sick. 

Saint follows a lead at the Quartz Mountain State Park, where she finds the bones of another dead girl buried with Eli Aaron’s rosary beads. 

In the summer of 1993, cancer-stricken Misty becomes horribly ill. To distract Charlotte from her mother’s imminent death, Patch teaches her to paint with his old supplies. Patch sits with Mrs. Meyer on the porch and she asks him if he really will stick around to help raise Charlotte after Misty dies, to which he says yes. 

Patch answers the Meyers’ phone one morning to learn that Charlotte has skipped school. He finds her by the lake and sits beside her. She tells him that she knows he’s her father, but that she’ll never accept him, before walking off. Misty grows weaker and weaker, and dies a few weeks later. 

Read an analysis of Charlotte’s unwillingness to accept Patch as her father.

Misty leaves almost all of her estate to Charlotte, and leaves sole custody of Charlotte to Patch. They bury her in the cemetery by the church, and Charlotte does not cry. She reluctantly moves into Patch’s house, unwilling to claim it as her own, but the two begin settling into a routine of sorts, living alongside each other. Patch lets her paint in the studio at the gallery, and in the afternoons they spend time at Mrs. Meyers’ house, where one day Mrs. Meyer tells Patch he is doing well. Patch shows Charlotte the basement in his house, where she discovers paintings, sketching, and memorabilia from the last twenty years. That night, Charlotte tells him she’s scared that Patch doesn’t have room in his heart to love her. 

Patch gets a letter about a missing girl and takes Charlotte out of school, bringing her with him on another unsuccessful search. He gets the girl’s name but little else, and asks Saint to run it; she tells him he can’t be going on these searches now that he has a daughter. That night he gets another call about the address of the girl’s family, learning that they are in North Dakota. For the first time, he decides not to go, staying with Charlotte to prove that he has room for her in his heart.

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