Late one afternoon, after the lesson, Tate lingering when he should have left, he and Kya sat on a log in the woods. She finally asked the question she’d wanted to ask for months. “Tate, I appreciate your teaching me to read and all those things you gave me. But why’d you do it? Don’t you have a girlfriend or somebody like that?”
“Nah—well, sometimes I do. I had one, but not now. I like being out here in the quiet and I like the way you’re so interested in the marsh, Kya. Most people don’t pay it any attention except to fish. They think it’s wasteland that should be drained and developed. People don’t understand that most sea creatures—including the very ones they eat—need the marsh.”
He didn’t mention how he felt sorry for her being alone, that he knew how the kids had treated her for years; how the villagers called her the Marsh Girl and made up stories about her. Sneaking out to her shack, running through the dark and tagging it, had become a regular tradition, an initiation for boys becoming men. What did that say about men? Some of them were already making bets about who would be the first to get her cherry. Things that infuriated and worried him.
But that wasn’t the main reason he’d left feathers for Kya in the forest, or why he kept coming to see her. The other words Tate didn’t say were his feelings for her that seemed tangled up between the sweet love for a lost sister and the fiery love for a girl. He couldn’t come close to sorting it out himself, but he’d never been hit by a stronger wave. A power of emotions as painful as pleasurable.
Poking a grass stalk down an ant hole, she finally asked, “Where’s your ma?”
A breeze wandered through the trees, gently shaking branches. Tate didn’t answer.
“You don’t have to say nothing,” she said.
“Anything.”
“You don’t have to say anything.”
“My mother and little sister died in a car wreck over in Asheville. My sister’s name was Carianne.”
“Oh. I’m so sorry, Tate. I bet your ma was real nice and pretty.”
“Yes. Both of them were.” He spoke to the ground, between his knees. “I’ve never talked about it before. To anybody.”
Me neither, Kya thought. Out loud she said, “My ma walked off one day and didn’t come back. The mama deer always come back.”
“Well, at least you can hope she does. Mine won’t come back for sure.”
They were silent a moment, then Tate continued. “I think . . .” But he stopped, looked away.
Kya looked at him, but he stared at the ground. Quiet.
She said, “What? You think what? You can say anything to me.”
Still he said nothing. From a patience born from knowing, she waited.
Finally, very softly he said, “I think they went to Asheville to buy my birthday present. There was this certain bike I wanted, had to have it. The Western Auto didn’t carry them, so I think they went to Asheville to buy that bike for me.”
“That doesn’t make it your fault,” she said.
“I know, but it feels like my fault,” Tate said. “I don’t even remember what kind of bike it was.”
Kya leaned closer to him, not enough to touch. But she felt a sensation—almost like the space between their shoulders had shifted. She wondered if Tate felt it. She wanted to lean in closer, just enough so their arms would gently brush together. To touch. And wondered if Tate would notice.
And just at that second, the wind picked up, and thousands upon thousands of yellow sycamore leaves broke from their life support and streamed across the sky. Autumn leaves don’t fall; they fly. They take their time and wander on this, their only chance to soar. Reflecting sunlight, they swirled and sailed and fluttered on the wind drafts.
Tate sprang from the log and called to her, “See how many leaves you can catch before they hit the ground!” Kya jumped up, and the two of them leapt and skipped through curtains of falling leaves, reaching their arms wide, snatching them before they fell to the earth. Laughing, Tate dived toward a leaf only inches from the ground, caught it, and rolled over, holding his trophy in the air. Kya threw her hands up, releasing all the leaves she had rescued back into the wind. As she ran back through them, they caught like gold in her hair.
Then, as she whirled around, she bumped into Tate, who had stood, and