39. Chase by Chance

As dawn lift­ed the fog of an August morn­ing in 1969, Kya set out to Cypress Cove, enticed by the mem­o­ry of once find­ing rare toad­stools there. Despite it being unsea­son­ably late for mush­room for­ag­ing, the cool, moist con­di­tions of the cove nur­tured a hope that she might redis­cov­er the elu­sive fun­gi. Since Tate had left her a com­pass more than a month earlier—a gift she had yet to acknowl­edge or use—she had not come into close con­tact with him, despite fre­quent sight­ings in the marsh.

Nav­i­gat­ing her boat through the cove, where moss-draped trees formed a nat­ur­al tun­nel along the shore, Kya was on the look­out for the small, bril­liant orange mush­rooms she cov­et­ed. Upon find­ing them, she beached her boat and began sketch­ing them in detail, lost in con­cen­tra­tion until unex­pect­ed foot­steps and a voice dis­rupt­ed her soli­tude.

Chase appeared, unin­vit­ed, dis­turb­ing her peace with his famil­iar taunt: “Well, look who’s here. My Marsh Girl.” Con­fused and star­tled by his sud­den pres­ence, Kya demand­ed he leave. Despite her protests, Chase attempt­ed to make amends, his breath heavy with the scent of bour­bon, claim­ing his endur­ing care for her, despite their failed rela­tion­ship and his engage­ment to anoth­er, revealed cru­el­ly through pub­lic announce­ment rather than per­son­al con­fes­sion.

Kya, fierce­ly inde­pen­dent and hurt by his betray­al, reject­ed his advances and asser­tions of mutu­al love. She con­front­ed him about his deceit regard­ing their future togeth­er and his sub­se­quent engage­ment. Dis­traught and deter­mined, she man­aged to break free from his grasp, assert­ing her inde­pen­dence and refusal to accept his ver­sion of their rela­tion­ship, thus high­light­ing her resilience and self-reliance in the face of betray­al.