Saint and her grandmother, Norma, drive to the Castor River Shut-Ins, where Saint photographs the pink granite, clear water, and forest with her Nikon. The outing begins peacefully, but Norma watches Saint closely and uses the walk through the conservation area to ask how worried she should be about her granddaughter.

As they move through the woods, Norma confronts Saint about Joseph Patch. Norma says Saint cannot save him, but Saint insists that she can. When Norma mentions the late-night answering machine messages Patch leaves about dreams and remembered lines from the missing girl, Saint admits she told him to keep calling because she believes those messages may help her find the girl he is chasing.

The conversation turns more painful when Norma says Patch's life is not Saint's to carry and warns that Saint no longer seems like herself. Saint argues that Patch has changed and that it is unfair; she still notices small things he might have liked, even though he no longer seems to care about them. When Norma reveals that Dr. Tooms has seen Saint watching his house, Saint defends herself by saying Tooms lied on the night she heard a scream and saw blood on his hands, deepening the sense that Saint still cannot let the case go.

Norma tries to pull Saint back toward her own future, reminding her that college and a life beyond this obsession are coming, while Patch is not hers to lose herself for. Saint answers that Patch has no one and not enough, and vows that she will find the girl for him. After they return home in silence, Saint finds an invitation to Misty Meyer's sixteenth-birthday party. Norma tells her to go, suggesting that if Patch is there, Saint should remind him that he did not lose everything while he was gone.