Patch finds overdue notices hidden in the freezer, including final demands, threats of legal action, and eviction warnings. Realizing how serious his family’s financial trouble is, Patch calls the cleaning agency and says his mother will return to work, even though he intends to take on the jobs himself.

That night, while his mother is deeply asleep, Patch puts on old clothes, takes her supplies and keys, and follows her cleaning route through town. Patch works through offices and shops on Main Street, cleaning law offices, an accounting firm, and other businesses. As Patch moves through these private workplaces, he notices fragments of other people’s problems and wealth, which sharpen his sense of how hard his own life is.

Near dawn, Patch reaches Monta Clare Fine Art, where the immaculate gallery feels unlike any other place on his route. There Patch meets Sammy, who recognizes Patch as the boy who saved Misty Meyer. Sammy speaks to Patch about public memory, failure, doing good, and sacrifice, and warns Patch about the pain carried in certain kinds of beauty. Patch listens while carefully cleaning around the paintings, especially a portrait of a frightened young girl that unsettles him.

The gallery stirs a powerful memory of Grace speaking to Patch in the dark about pirates, tears, and art as feeling. Moved by that memory, Patch steals pencils and a sketch pad from a back room. When Patch returns home, he is too exhausted to sleep, but he spends the remaining night trying again and again to sketch Grace from memory, crumpling failed attempts before finally collapsing into bed. With school only an hour away, Patch thinks about skipping it as his priorities keep shifting, and the chapter ends with Patch overwhelmed by how much he misses Grace.