In the chap­ter titled “The Fish­ing Sea­son” set in 1952, Kya reflects on her inter­ac­tions with the few peo­ple in her life fol­low­ing an encounter with a kind boy who reminds her of her broth­er, Jodie. Iso­lat­ed and liv­ing in a dilap­i­dat­ed home with her abu­sive father, Kya’s social inter­ac­tions are lim­it­ed to brief encoun­ters with Pa, the Pig­gly Wig­gly check­out lady Mrs. Sin­gle­tary, and the gulls she talks to. Her day­dreams about using her father’s boat to explore the marsh and maybe recon­nect with the boy illus­trate her deep yearn­ing for com­pan­ion­ship and a sem­blance of nor­mal­cy.

Despite her aver­sion to Mrs. Sin­gle­tary’s pry­ing ques­tions about her fam­i­ly, Kya relies on the mar­ket for essen­tials, often fac­ing the stig­ma asso­ci­at­ed with her pover­ty. Her vis­it to Mr. Lane’s fill­ing sta­tion for gas and oil fur­ther expos­es her to the com­mu­ni­ty’s dis­dain, call­ing her “marsh trash.” Yet, she per­se­veres, metic­u­lous­ly car­ing for her home in a bid to man­age on her own and pos­si­bly earn her father’s approval.

After Pa leaves for sev­er­al days, Kya pre­pares a meal in antic­i­pa­tion of his return, long­ing for any sign of famil­ial bond. His acknowl­edg­ment of her efforts marks a rare moment of con­nec­tion, soft­en­ing the harsh real­i­ty of their rela­tion­ship. Seiz­ing the oppor­tu­ni­ty, Kya hes­i­tant­ly asks to join Pa in fish­ing, a request he sur­pris­ing­ly enter­tains, lead­ing to shared out­ings that become their form of silent bond­ing.

Through these fish­ing trips, Kya and her father find a ten­ta­tive peace in their strained rela­tion­ship, a respite from their mutu­al iso­la­tion. These expe­ri­ences also pro­vide Kya with mean­ing­ful encoun­ters with the nat­ur­al world, col­lect­ing feath­ers and nests, deep­en­ing her con­nec­tion to the marsh that is both her refuge and prison. The renewed inter­ac­tion with Tate, a boy she wish­es to befriend, hints at pos­si­bil­i­ties of new con­nec­tions beyond her father and the marsh.

A sig­nif­i­cant step in their rela­tion­ship occurs when Pa acknowl­edges Kya’s inter­ests by giv­ing her his knap­sack for her col­lec­tions, a ges­ture of recog­ni­tion and per­haps the clos­est expres­sion of care she has received from him. This action, com­bined with their fish­ing adven­tures, high­lights a shift in their dynam­ic, offer­ing a glim­mer of hope in Kya’s oth­er­wise soli­tary exis­tence.

The chap­ter clos­es with a jux­ta­po­si­tion of Kya’s long­ing for both the sim­plic­i­ty of her moments with Pa and the com­plex­i­ty of human con­nec­tions she desires, sym­bol­ized by her fleet­ing inter­ac­tion with Tate. Her life, deeply inter­twined with the marsh, reflects a del­i­cate bal­ance between soli­tude and the uni­ver­sal human need for con­nec­tion and belong­ing.