In 1961, amidst the swel­ter­ing heat that caused pal­met­to fronds to rat­tle men­ac­ing­ly, Kya endured the depths of despair fol­low­ing Tate’s depar­ture. For days, she remained in bed, not car­ing for the time, the moon, or the marsh that had always been her sanc­tu­ary. She was par­a­lyzed by the heat and her own heartache, her sheets damp with sweat, offer­ing no respite. The calls from the gulls and the marsh’s life went ignored, a tes­ta­ment to Kya’s grief over the aban­don­ment she felt—not just by Tate, but by her entire fam­i­ly who had one by one left her behind.

Her bed became a nest of tur­moil, as she grap­pled with the real­iza­tion that Tate, who embod­ied life and love for her, had become anoth­er name in the list of those who had aban­doned her. Heart­bro­ken and despon­dent, Kya resolved nev­er to allow her­self to trust or love again, a deci­sion born from the cumu­la­tive betray­als she had endured through­out her life. This despair enveloped her until an unex­pect­ed visitor—a Cooper’s hawk—captivated her atten­tion and marked the first steps toward pulling her­self from the pit of her des­o­la­tion.

With new pur­pose, how­ev­er reluc­tant­ly embraced, Kya ven­tured to the beach, a place of for­mer joy and now a can­vas for her sor­row. There, feed­ing the gulls, she found a sem­blance of con­nec­tion and lib­er­a­tion from her pain. Sur­round­ed by the birds, feel­ing their feath­ers against her skin, she allowed her­self a moment of release, tears min­gling with smiles. This chap­ter vivid­ly cap­tures Kya’s jour­ney through despair, show­cas­ing her pro­found con­nec­tion with the nat­ur­al world and mark­ing the start of her heal­ing process, how­ev­er uncer­tain and painful it might be.