Where the Crawdads Sing

by Delia Owens

diurnal

duff;

whelp

palmetto

lean-to

Chase Andrews.”

Insolent

slough.

kilter.”

His dad had told him many times that the definition of a real man is one who cries without shame, reads poetry with his heart, feels opera in his soul, and does what’s necessary to defend a woman.

corn likker

bream,

myrtle

outboard

Pleistocene

. . . all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,

And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

Trapped inside, Love is a caged beast, Eating its own flesh. Love must be free to wander, To land upon its chosen shore And breathe.

minutiae

breakers

She laughed for his sake, something she’d never done. Giving away another piece of herself just to have someone else.

Professorial.

fishwife

gunwale

It seemed to Kya that when Chase played these melancholy tunes was when he most had a soul.

“I must let go now. Let you go. Love is too often The answer for staying. Too seldom the reason For going. I drop the line And watch you drift away. “All along You thought The fiery current

Of your lover’s breast Pulled you to the deep. But it was my heart-tide Releasing you To float adrift With seaweed.”

As she pushed off, she knew no one would ever see this sandbar again. The elements had created a brief and shifting smile of sand, angled just so. The next tide, the next current would design another sandbar, and another, but never this one. Not the one who caught her. The one who told her a thing or two.

If anyone understood loneliness, the moon would.

As a father would have shown it.

Faces change with life’s toll, but eyes remain a window to what was, and she could see him there.

I have to say I am relieved it is over: At the end I could feel only pity For that urge toward more life. . . . Goodbye.

“I’ve read a lot about this since. In nature—out yonder where the crawdads sing—these ruthless-seeming behaviors actually increase the mother’s number of young over her lifetime, and thus her genes for abandoning offspring in times of stress are passed on to the next generation.

Some parts of us will always be what we were, what we had to be to survive—way back yonder.

Let’s face it, a lot of times love doesn’t work out. Yet even when it fails, it connects you to others and, in the end, that is all you have, the connections.

“Sunsets are never simple. Twilight is refracted and reflected But never true. Eventide is a disguise Covering tracks, Covering lies. “We don’t care That dusk deceives. We see brilliant colors, And never learn The sun has dropped Beneath the earth By the time we see the burn. “Sunsets are in disguise, Covering truths, covering lies. “A.H.”

Winged soul, you danced the skies, And startled dawn with shrilling cries. You followed sails and braved the sea, Then caught the wind back to me. You broke your wing; it dragged the land And etched your mark upon the sand. When feathers break, you cannot fly, But who decides the time to die?

You disappeared, I know not where. But your wing-marks still linger there. A broken heart cannot fly,

But who decides the time to die?

She feels the pulse of life, he thought, because there are no layers between her and her planet.

Who decides the time to die?

The sweeping up the heart, And putting Love away We shall not want to use again Until Eternity.

“Never underrate the heart, Capable of deeds The mind cannot conceive. The heart dictates as well as feels. How else can you explain The path I have taken, That you have taken The long way through this pass?”

“You came again, Blinding my eyes Like the shimmer of sun upon the sea. Just as I feel free The moon casts your face upon the sill. Each time I forget you Your eyes haunt my heart and it falls still. And so farewell Until the next time you come, Until at last I do not see you.”

As she opened the gate everyone looked at her, then stepped aside to make a path. Standing on the porch, Mabel rushed to Kya. They hugged, rocking back and forth, crying.

“Lawd, he loved ya like his own dawder,” Mabel said. “I know,” Kya said, “and he was my pa.”

And as she wandered the beach remembering Jumpin’, thoughts of her mother pushed into her mind. As though Kya were once again the little girl of six, she saw Ma walking down the sandy lane in her old gator shoes, maneuvering the deep ruts. But in this version, Ma stopped at the end of the trail and looked back, waving her hand high in farewell. She smiled at Kya, turned onto the road, and disappeared into the forest. And this time, finally, it was okay. With no tears or censure, Kya whispered, “Good-bye, Ma.” She thought of the others briefly—Pa, her brother and sisters. But she didn’t have enough of that bygone family to bid farewell.

And I’ll hide the maid in a cypress tree, When the footstep of death is near.

Amanda Hamilton was Kya. Kya was the poet.

The Firefly Luring him was as easy As flashing valentines. But like a lady firefly They hid a secret call to die. A final touch, Unfinished; The last step, a trap. Down, down he falls, His eyes still holding mine Until they see another world. I saw them change. First a question, Then an answer, Finally an end. And love itself passing To whatever it was before it began. A.H.