Where the Crawdads Sing

Over the next few weeks, Chase and Kya spent evenings lazing with the gulls on her beach, lying back on sand still warm from the sun. Chase didn’t take her into town, to the picture show or sock hops; it was the two of them, the marsh, the sea, and the sky. He didn’t kiss her, only held her hand or put his arm lightly around her shoulders in the coolness.

Then one night he stayed late into the dark, and they sat on the beach under the stars by a small fire, shoulders touching, a blanket around them. The flames threw light across their faces and dark across the shore behind them, as campfires do. Looking into her eyes, he asked, “Is it okay if I kiss you now?” She nodded, so he leaned down and kissed her softly at first, and then like a man.

They lay back on the blanket, and she wiggled in as close to him as she could get. Feeling his strong body. He held her tight with both of his arms, but only touched her shoulders with his hands. Nothing more. She breathed deep, breathed in the warmth, the scents of him and the sea, the togetherness.

•   •   •

ONLY A FEW DAYS LATER, Tate, still home from graduate school, raced his boat toward Kya’s marsh channel, the first time he’d done so in five years. He still couldn’t explain to himself why he’d never gone back to her before now. Mostly he’d been a coward, ashamed. Finally, he was going to find her, tell her he’d never stopped loving her and beg her to forgive him.

Those four years at university, he’d convinced himself that Kya could not fit in the academic world he sought. All through undergraduate, he’d tried to forget her; after all, there were plenty of female distractions at Chapel Hill. He even had a few long-term relationships, but no one compared. What he’d learned right after DNA, isotopes, and protozoans was that he couldn’t breathe without her. True, Kya couldn’t live in the university world he had sought, but now he could live in hers.

He had it all figured out. His professor had said Tate could finish graduate school in the next three years because he’d been conducting his research for his PhD dissertation all through undergraduate and it was nearly complete. Then, recently Tate learned that a federal research lab was to be built near Sea Oaks, and that he would have an excellent chance of being hired as a full-time research scientist. No one on Earth was better qualified: he’d been studying the local marsh most of his life, and soon he would have the PhD to back it up. In just a few short years, he could live here in the marsh with Kya and work at the lab. Marry Kya. If she would have him.

Now, as he bounced across waves toward her channel, suddenly Kya’s boat zoomed south, perpendicular to his course. Letting go of the tiller, he threw both arms above his head, waving frantically to get her attention. Shouted out her name. But she was looking east. Tate glanced in that direction and saw Chase’s ski boat veering toward her. Tate idled back, watching as Kya and Chase spun around each other in the blue-gray waves, in ever-smaller circles like eagles courting in the sky. Their wakes crazed and swirling.

Tate stared as they met and touched fingers across the churning water. He’d heard the rumors from his old friends in Barkley Cove but hoped they weren’t true. He understood why Kya would fall for such a man, handsome, no doubt romantic, whizzing her around in his fancy boat, taking her on fancy picnics. She wouldn’t know anything of his life in town—dating and courting other young women in Barkley, even Sea Oaks.

And, Tate thought, who am I to say anything? I didn’t treat her any better. I broke a promise, didn’t even have the guts to break up with her.

He dipped his head, then stole another glance just in time to see Chase lean over to kiss her. Kya, Kya, he thought. How could I have left you? Slowly, he accelerated and turned back toward the town harbor to help his dad crate and carry the catch.

•   •   •

A FEW DAYS LATER, never knowing when Chase might come, Kya once again found herself listening for the sound of his boat. Just as she had for Tate. So whether pulling weeds, chopping stove wood, or collecting mussels, she’d tilt her head just so to catch the sound. “Squint yo’ ears,” Jodie used to say.

Tired of being weighted down by hope, she threw three days’ worth of biscuits, cold backstrap, and sardines in her knapsack and walked out to the old falling-down log cabin; the “reading cabin,” as she thought of it. Out here, in the real remote, she was free to wander, collect at will, read the words, read the wild. Not waiting for the sounds of someone was a release. And a strength.