“REMEMBER WHEN YOU READ your first sentence, you said that some words hold a lot?” Tate said one day, sitting on the creek bank.
“Yeah, I remember, why?”
“Well, especially poems. The words in poems do more than say things. They stir up emotions. Even make you laugh.”
“Ma used to read poems, but I don’t remember any.”
“Listen to this; it’s by Edward Lear.” He took out a folded envelope and read,
“Then Mr. Daddy Long-legs
And Mr. Floppy Fly
Rushed downward to the foamy sea
With one sponge-taneous cry;
And there they found a little boat,
Whose sails were pink and gray;
And off they sailed among the waves,
Far, and far away.”
Smiling, she said, “It makes a rhythm like waves hitting the beach.”
After that she went into a poem-writing phase, making them up as she boated through the marsh or looked for shells—simple verses, singsong and silly. “There’s a mama blue jay lifting from a branch; I’d fly too, if I had a chance.” They made her laugh out loud; filled up a few lonely minutes of a long, lonely day.
One late afternoon, reading at the kitchen table, she remembered Ma’s book of poetry and scrounged until she found it. The volume so worn, the covers had long since gone, the pages held together by two frayed rubber bands. Kya carefully took them off and thumbed through the pages, reading Ma’s notes in the margins. At the end was a list of page numbers of Ma’s favorites.
Kya turned to one by James Wright:
Suddenly lost and cold,
I knew the yard lay bare,
I longed to touch and hold
My child, my talking child,
Laughing or tame or wild . . .
Trees and the sun were gone,
Everything gone but us.
His mother sang in the house,
And kept our supper warm,
And loved us, God knows how,
The wide earth darkened so.
And this one by Galway Kinnell.
I did care. . . .
I did say everything I thought
In the mildest words I knew. And now, . . .
I have to say I am relieved it is over:
At the end I could feel only pity
For that urge toward more life.
. . . Goodbye.
Kya touched the words as if they were a message, as though Ma had underlined them specifically so her daughter would read them someday by this dim kerosene flame and understand. It wasn’t much, not a handwritten note tucked in the back of a sock drawer, but it was something. She sensed that the words clinched a powerful meaning, but she couldn’t shake it free. If she ever became a poet, she’d make the message clear.
AFTER TATE STARTED his senior year in September, he couldn’t come to Kya’s place as often, but when he did, he brought her discarded textbooks from school. He didn’t say a word about the biology books being too advanced for her, so she plowed through chapters she wouldn’t have seen for four years in school. “Don’t worry,” he’d say, “you’ll get a little more every time you read it.” And that was true.
As the days grew shorter, again they met near her shack because there wasn’t enough daylight to get to the reading cabin. They had always studied outside, but when a crazed wind blew one morning, Kya built up the fire in the woodstove. No one had crossed the shack’s threshold since Pa disappeared more than four years ago, and to ask anybody inside would seem unthinkable. Anyone but Tate.
“Wanta sit in the kitchen by the stove?” she said when he dragged his rig onto the lagoon shore.
“Sure,” he said, knowing not to make a big deal of the invitation.
As soon as he stepped inside the porch, he took nearly twenty minutes to explore and exclaim over her feathers and shells and bones and nests. When they finally settled at the table, she pulled her chair close to his, their arms and elbows nearly touching. Just to feel him near.
With Tate so busy helping his dad, the days dragged slow from nose to tail. Late one evening she took her first novel, Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier, from Ma’s bookshelf and read about love. After a while she closed the book and walked to the closet. She slipped on Ma’s sundress and swished around the room, flipping the skirt about, whirling in front of the mirror. Her mane and hips swaying, she imagined Tate asking her to dance. His hand on her waist. As if she were Mrs. de Winter.
Abruptly she caught herself and bent over, giggling. Then stood very still.
“COME ON UP HERE, CHILD,” Mabel sang out one afternoon. “I got ya some things.” Jumpin’ usually brought the boxes of goods for Kya, but when Mabel showed up, there was usually something special.
“Go on then, pick up yo’ stuff. I’ll fill yo’ tank,” Jumpin’ said, so Kya hopped onto the wharf.
“Look here, Miss Kya,” Mabel said, as she lifted a peach-colored dress with a layer of chiffon over the flowered skirt, the most beautiful piece of clothing Kya had ever seen, prettier than Ma’s sundress. “This dress is fit for a princess like you.” She held it in front of Kya, who touched it and smiled. Then, facing away from Jumpin’, Mabel leaned over at the middle with some effort and lifted a white bra from the box.
Kya felt heat all over.
“Now, Miss Kya, don’t be shy, hon. Ya be needin’ this ’bout now. And, child, if there’s ever anything ya need to talk to me about, anything ya don’t understand, ya let ol’ Mabel know. Ya heah?”
“Yes’m. Thank you, Mabel.” Kya tucked the bra deep in the box, under some jeans and T-shirts, a bag of black-eyed peas, and a jar of put-up peaches.
A few weeks later, watching pelicans float and feed in the sea, her boat riding up and down waves, Kya’s stomach suddenly cramped up. She’d never been seasick, and this felt different from any pain she’d ever had. She pulled her boat ashore at Point Beach and sat on the sand, legs folded to one side like a wing. The pain sharpened, and she grimaced, made a little moan. She must have the runs coming.
Suddenly she heard the purr of a motor and saw Tate’s rig cutting through the white-capped surf. He turned inland the instant he saw her and made for shore. She spat out some of Pa’s cussing. She always liked seeing Tate, but not when she might have to run to the oak woods any second with diarrhea. After dragging his boat next to hers, he plopped down on the sand beside her.
“Hey, Kya. What’re you doing? I was just going out to your place.”
“Hey, Tate. It’s good to see you.” She tried to sound normal, but her stomach twisted tightly.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“What do you mean?”
“You don’t look good. What’s wrong?”
“I think I’m sick. My stomach’s cramping real hard.”
“Oh.” Tate looked out over the sea. Dug his bare toes in the sand.
“Maybe you should go,” she said, head down.
“Maybe I should stay till you’re better. Suppose you can’t get yourself home?”
“I might have to go to the woods. I might be sick.”
“Maybe. But I don’t think that’s going to help,” he said quietly.
“What do you mean? You don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
“Does this feel different from other stomachaches?”
“Yes.”
“You’re almost fifteen, right?”
“Yes. What’s that got to do with it?”
He was quiet a minute. Shuffled his feet, digging his toes deeper in the sand. Looking away from her, he said, “It might be, you know, what happens to girls your age. Remember, a few months ago I brought you a pamphlet about it. It was with those biology books.” Tate glanced at her briefly, his face blazing, and looked away again.
Kya dropped her eyes as her whole body blushed. Of course, there’d been no Ma to tell her, but indeed a school booklet Tate had brought explained some. Now her time had come, and here she was sitting on the beach becoming a woman right in front of a boy. Shame and panic filled her. What was she supposed to do? What exactly would happen? How much blood would there be? She imagined it leaking into the sand around her. She sat silent as a sharp pain racked her middle.
“Can you get yourself home?” he asked, still not looking at her.
“I think so.”
“It’ll be okay, Kya. Every girl goes through this just fine. You go on home. I’ll follow way back to make sure you get there.”
“You don’t have to.”
“Don’t worry about me. Now get going.” He stood and walked to his boat, not looking at her. He motored out and waited quite far offshore until she headed up coast toward her channel. So far back he was just a speck, he followed until she reached her lagoon. Standing on the bank, she waved briefly to him, her face down, not meeting his eyes.
Just as she had figured out most things, Kya figured out how to become a woman on her own. But the next morning at first light, she boated over to Jumpin’s. A pale sun seemed suspended in thick fog as she approached his wharf and looked for Mabel, knowing there was little chance she’d be there. Sure enough, only Jumpin’ walked out to greet her.
“Hi, Miss Kya. Ya needin’ gas a’ready?”