17. Crossing the Threshold

In Chap­ter 17 of the sto­ry, set in 1960, Kya is alert­ed by Jumpin’, a close acquain­tance, that Social Ser­vices offi­cials have been inquir­ing about her, seek­ing infor­ma­tion on her father’s where­abouts, her edu­ca­tion sta­tus, and her fre­quent vis­its to Jumpin’. Kya, already liv­ing in soli­tude in the marsh­lands, becomes appre­hen­sive about being placed into fos­ter care and decides to find a safer hid­ing spot. She dis­cuss­es her con­cerns with Tate, a friend who sug­gests they meet in a more seclud­ed loca­tion to avoid detec­tion by author­i­ties. They agree on an old cab­in in the marsh as their new ren­dezvous point, where they con­tin­ue their edu­ca­tion­al ses­sions and read­ing habit, par­tic­u­lar­ly delv­ing into “A Sand Coun­ty Almanac” by Aldo Leopold, which inspires Kya with its poet­ic lan­guage and envi­ron­men­tal insights.

Through­out the sum­mer, Kya takes pre­cau­tions to main­tain her inde­pen­dence while ben­e­fit­ing from Tate’s sup­port, both emo­tion­al­ly and aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly. They share moments of learn­ing, dis­cov­er­ing poet­ry togeth­er, which enrich­es Kya emo­tion­al­ly and intel­lec­tu­al­ly, allow­ing her to explore new ways to express her­self, evi­denced by her attempts at writ­ing poet­ry. The chap­ter also explores Kya’s mat­u­ra­tion, as evi­denced by her first men­stru­al cycle, an event that caus­es her embar­rass­ment and con­fu­sion, espe­cial­ly in front of Tate. How­ev­er, with help and reas­sur­ance from Mabel, a moth­er­ly fig­ure, and Tate’s con­tin­ued respect and sup­port, she nav­i­gates this new phase in her life.

More­over, the chap­ter sub­tly reveals the depth of Kya’s and Tate’s emo­tion­al con­nec­tion. While they both con­front per­son­al vulnerabilities—Kya with her sud­den wom­an­hood and Tate by shar­ing the trag­ic loss of his moth­er and sister—their bond strength­ens, hint­ing at a rela­tion­ship that tran­scends friend­ship. Tate’s ded­i­ca­tion to teach­ing Kya and pro­vid­ing her with books indi­cates a deep care and pos­si­bly roman­tic affec­tion, where­as for Kya, these inter­ac­tions with Tate rep­re­sent rare moments of human con­nec­tion and com­fort in her iso­lat­ed life. This chap­ter, rich in emo­tion­al and phys­i­cal tran­si­tions, por­trays Kya’s resilience in the face of soci­etal pres­sures and per­son­al chal­lenges, under­scored by the piv­otal sup­port of the few indi­vid­u­als who under­stand and accept her.