In Chap­ter 16, titled “Pen­nies and Grits,” set in 1956, Kya Clark’s world is one of iso­la­tion, grief, and an over­whelm­ing desire for con­nec­tion. Aban­doned by her fam­i­ly, Kya spends her days in the marsh­lands, alone except for the com­pa­ny of nature. Her sense of long­ing for human com­pan­ion­ship dri­ves her to seek out Tate, a boy who had once helped her nav­i­gate the marsh three years pri­or. Despite spot­ting him fish­ing one day, Kya hes­i­tates to approach him, torn between the pull of want­i­ng com­pan­ion­ship and the fear of rejec­tion, a reflec­tion of her deep-seat­ed emo­tion­al scars from years of aban­don­ment. Her heart is heavy with the weight of lone­li­ness, and her mind swirls with doubt, but her yearn­ing to feel under­stood dri­ves her to con­tin­ue hop­ing for some con­nec­tion, even if it feels like an unreach­able dream.

Kya’s days are marked by a sim­ple but harsh exis­tence. She wears old, worn-out over­alls and walks bare­foot, which under­scores the harsh­ness of her envi­ron­ment and the sparse resources avail­able to her. At one point, she finds her­self try­ing on her moth­er’s old sundress—a piece of cloth­ing that was once a sym­bol of mater­nal care and affection—only to real­ize its imprac­ti­cal­i­ty for her life in the swamp. With the weight of her soli­tude press­ing down on her, she puts the dress back, acknowl­edg­ing that it no longer fits the life she must lead. It serves as a sym­bol of the gap between the world she yearns for and the harsh real­i­ty she faces every day. The real­iza­tion marks a moment of emo­tion­al growth for Kya, where she begins to under­stand the deep­er con­flict with­in her: her desire for the com­fort of fam­i­ly, while com­ing to terms with its absence.

As the chap­ter pro­gress­es, Kya’s sur­vival instincts are put to the test when Jumpin’, one of the few peo­ple she inter­acts with, tells her he can no longer pur­chase her mus­sels due to his lim­it­ed quo­ta. With a dwin­dling source of income, Kya faces the stark real­i­ty that she must find anoth­er way to pro­vide for her­self. Draw­ing on the skills she learned from her father, she resorts to smok­ing fish, despite know­ing that the fish may not be the most appeal­ing to oth­ers. How­ev­er, Jumpin’ agrees to give them a try, offer­ing to sell them on consignment—a small but crit­i­cal ges­ture that offers Kya a tem­po­rary life­line. It shows her that, despite her iso­la­tion, there are peo­ple in her world will­ing to help her, even if only in small ways, and that small acts of kind­ness can make a world of dif­fer­ence.

Mabel, Jumpin’s wife, goes even fur­ther by offer­ing to cook the fish and arrang­ing for the local church to pro­vide Kya with some of the goods she des­per­ate­ly needs. While Mabel is uncer­tain whether any­one will buy the smoked fish, she does not hes­i­tate to lend a help­ing hand, demon­strat­ing a lev­el of gen­eros­i­ty and con­cern that Kya had not expect­ed. This act of kind­ness marks a turn­ing point in Kya’s under­stand­ing of human con­nec­tion, as she begins to expe­ri­ence the warmth and sup­port of the com­mu­ni­ty she had long dis­tanced her­self from. It is in this exchange that Kya finds a renewed sense of hope, as she real­izes that despite the years of iso­la­tion, the pos­si­bil­i­ty of form­ing mean­ing­ful con­nec­tions still exists.

The chap­ter delves deep­er into Kya’s emo­tion­al and phys­i­cal resilience, par­tic­u­lar­ly when she takes it upon her­self to restore her mother’s gar­den. This act sym­bol­izes her deter­mi­na­tion to reclaim some con­trol over her life and cre­ate a sense of sta­bil­i­ty amidst the chaos of her cir­cum­stances. Find­ing an old bar­rette that once belonged to her moth­er stirs up a whirl­wind of emo­tions for Kya, remind­ing her of the fam­i­ly she lost. Yet, as she holds the bar­rette, a qui­et accep­tance begins to set­tle with­in her. She real­izes that although her moth­er is gone, she must con­tin­ue for­ward and live the life she has carved for her­self in the swamp.

The final moments of the chap­ter show Kya return­ing to Jumpin’s wharf to find the promised goods wait­ing for her. This sim­ple act of generosity—an unex­pect­ed kindness—is a pro­found moment for Kya, as it marks the begin­ning of her under­stand­ing that there is more to the world than her iso­la­tion. The goods sym­bol­ize not only her sur­vival but also the recog­ni­tion that even in her lone­ly world, human con­nec­tion is pos­si­ble. As the chap­ter clos­es, Kya’s per­cep­tion of her place in the world shifts, and she begins to con­sid­er the idea of trust and vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty once again, even though it comes with its own fears. In this chap­ter, Kya takes sig­nif­i­cant steps toward heal­ing and self-empow­er­ment, show­ing the impor­tance of human kind­ness in the face of soli­tude and hard­ship.