**Chap­ter Sum­ma­ry: Pen­nies and Grits, 1956**

In the chap­ter “Pen­nies and Grits,” set in 1956, Kya Clark, a soli­tary girl aban­doned by her fam­i­ly, strug­gles with lone­li­ness in the marsh­lands. Long­ing for con­nec­tion, she fre­quent­ly seeks out Tate, a boy who had helped her nav­i­gate the marsh three years pri­or. Despite spot­ting him fish­ing one day, she hes­i­tates to approach him, torn between the desire for com­pan­ion­ship and the fear of rejec­tion.

Liv­ing in squalor, Kya wears old over­alls and no shoes, and her attempts to main­tain a sem­blance of nor­mal­cy dwin­dle as she faces the harsh real­i­ty of her iso­la­tion. A poignant moment occurs when she tries on her moth­er’s sun­dress, only to hang it back up, real­iz­ing its imprac­ti­cal­i­ty for her life.

Her sub­sis­tence lifestyle is threat­ened when Jumpin’, a store own­er and one of the few peo­ple Kya inter­acts with, informs her he can­not buy her mus­sels due to reach­ing his quo­ta. Des­per­ate­ly in need of mon­ey, Kya turns to smok­ing fish, a skill she learned from her father. Although the smoked fish are not appeal­ing, Jumpin’ agrees to try sell­ing them on con­sign­ment.

Kya’s plight moves Jumpin’s wife, Mabel, to offer help. Despite skep­ti­cism that any­one would buy the smoked fish, Mabel decides to cook them and arranges for the com­mu­ni­ty church to pro­vide Kya with essen­tial items in exchange. The next day, Jumpin’ intro­duces Kya to Mabel, who warm­ly offers to trade goods for her smoked fish and assists her in oth­er prac­ti­cal mat­ters, includ­ing start­ing a gar­den.

The encounter leads to a glim­mer of hope for Kya, who works to restore her moth­er’s gar­den as a way to assert con­trol over her life. Upon find­ing an old bar­rette of her moth­er’s, mem­o­ries and a sense of long­ing resur­face, but Kya begins to accept her moth­er’s per­ma­nent absence.

The chap­ter con­cludes with Kya return­ing to Jump­in’s wharf to find the promised goods await­ing her, a tes­ta­ment to the kind­ness and com­mu­ni­ty sup­port she had not antic­i­pat­ed. This ges­ture marks a turn­ing point in her under­stand­ing of human con­nec­tions and ten­ta­tive steps towards trust­ing oth­ers.