Page 2 of That Last Carolina Summer

“The homing instinct in birds and animals is one of their most remarkable traits: their strong local attachments and their skill in finding their way back when removed to a distance. It seems at times as if they possessed some extra sense—the home sense—which operates unerringly.”

—John Burroughs

From the blog The Thing with Feathers

Phoebe

2025

MY PHONE RANG at five fifteen in the morning. I’d fallen asleep on the couch, having convinced myself the night before that I would just close my eyes for a moment before getting up to get ready for bed.

I blinked, waiting for the phone to ring again so I could locate it in the cushions of the couch, gradually becoming aware of the soft voices on the television that I’d forgotten to turn off. Bette Davis’s black-and-white face was saying something to Henry Fonda in a passable Southern accent.

I recognized a scene from the movie Jezebel , a favorite classic I watched countless times with Aunt Sassy during my adolescence and her battle with pancreatic cancer.

At the time, both afflictions had made everything seem untenable except for the Turner Classic Movies channel and benne wafers from Olde Colony Bakery.

I had managed to outgrow my adolescence, but Sassy’s cancer remained intractable no matter what the doctors did or how many times I promised God I’d be the daughter my mother wanted me to be if He would only make my aunt better.

My phone rang again as I patted the cushions around me.

The random thought struck me that Sassy and I had never watched Jezebel or any other movie with the captions turned on.

Maybe Sassy’s lipreading abilities were better than she’d let on, or maybe she believed it wasn’t always necessary to hear what people were saying to understand everything you needed to know.

I stood, the movement revealing my phone’s hiding place by shifting it from my lap onto the floor.

My sister’s name and number appeared on the screen, momentarily paralyzing me.

Addie and I hadn’t had a real conversation since our father’s funeral nearly ten years before, and never on the phone.

Even now we only interacted once a year during the awkward Christmases at the house in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, where we’d grown up.

It hadn’t always been that way between us. Despite having enough bedrooms in our family home, we’d insisted on sharing a room. She was my ally against our mother’s constant attempts to civilize me, and I was Addie’s alibi on the occasions when she escaped our parents’ supervision.

But like all things of childhood, we’d slipped off those skins like outgrown clothes.

I don’t remember exactly when it happened, but by the time I reached high school, Addie had moved to her own room, and my sister became a stranger to me.

I had lost my ally, but I remained loyal, hiding her increasingly wild escapades from our parents in the futile hope that she would remove her mask and become my sister again.

I continued to stare at the screen, waiting for it to go to voice mail. Instead, it rang again. I picked up the phone without answering and carried it to the kitchen, knowing that I would need coffee first before dealing with whatever Addie had to say.

The coffee canister sat in the middle of the counter, its lid hinged to the open position to remind me that I was out of coffee and that I needed to go to the grocery store. Damn. I took a deep breath. “Hello?”

My sister exhaled loudly, every ounce of her breath weighted with anger, annoyance, and the superiority only older siblings can manage. “It’s about time, Phoebe. Why can’t you just answer your phone like a normal person?”

I let the barb vibrate in its target before mentally dislodging it. “Wow. That was quick, even by your standards. I’m doing well. Thanks for asking. What about you?”

She didn’t bother responding, her usual form of dismissal. Instead, she said, “Have you spoken with Mother?”

A surprising and unwelcome scattershot of varying emotions peppered my insides. “No. Should I have?”

I heard our mother’s voice in the background, calling Adeline’s name with growing agitation. “I’ll be right there, Mother,” Addie called, her muffled voice followed by the sound of a door quietly clicking shut.

“Addie?” I asked.

“I’m here, I’m here. You need to come home, Phoebe. Right now.”

A heavy mixture of dread and worry congealed in my stomach. “Why? What’s wrong?”

“It’s Mother. She got lost driving to Home Depot for Christmas lights, and the police called me at work to come get her.”

I thought for a moment, letting that sink in. “But it’s only May. Why was she buying Christmas lights?”

“That’s my point, Phoebe.” Her voice sounded even more agitated than before, and I wondered what I was missing.

“Okay,” I said slowly. My eyes drifted to the clock on the microwave.

If I didn’t hurry, I’d be late for work, and I hated to be a bad example for the eighth-grade students I taught at the science academy.

“Maybe there was a Christmas in July sale. Was it at night? You know how she’s never had a good sense of direction and can’t see at night.

I’m guessing the police overreacted when one of them told her she shouldn’t be driving.

” I walked toward the bathroom, shedding my clothes along the way.

“It’s more than that. Last week, she forgot to pick up my daughter after school.”

“Maybe she thought you were supposed to do it?”

“No, Phoebe. Mother always picks up Ophelia. Always. It’s her job.”

I felt the first stab of worry but pushed it aside.

It seemed like the unfolding of one of Addie’s many minidramas she seemed to enjoy inflicting on the rest of us and nothing at all to do with our mother.

I expected Mother to take the phone from Addie at any moment and tell her to act like a lady and stop being so dramatic.

“I’m sure she was out shopping and forgot the time. She was always late for school pickup, remember?”

“You need to come home. Now.” She screamed the last word, which solidified my opinion that she was being dramatic and that it was most likely all about an argument she’d had with our mother.

I turned on the shower, knowing she could hear the water hitting the tile. “Look, I’ve got to go or I’ll be late for work.” I wanted to tell her that today was the first day of the science fair and as the lead teacher I was in charge, but I didn’t bother.

“You have no idea what my life is like.” I heard the studied control in her voice, the steadied breathing.

She was angry. I was an expert on reading people, but especially my only sibling.

I’d grown used to living in her shadow, allowing me ample opportunity to study and observe, to learn where to find her vulnerable spots.

Maybe that was the thing between sisters: knowing exactly where to aim the arrow.

We rarely missed. When I was seven and Addie nine, she’d convinced me that the reason I looked so different from the rest of the family was because I’d been found in an osprey’s nest as a baby and our parents adopted me out of pity.

I was a teenager when I realized that being adopted wouldn’t be so bad if it meant that maybe my real family was out there looking for me.

That was the faint hope I’d carried with me through my twenties until in a stupid moment fueled by too much New Years’ Eve champagne, I’d confessed my dream to Addie.

Her expression of ridicule had extinguished that small glimmer of possibility that maybe somewhere, I belonged to anyone else.

Addie inhaled sharply. “I took her to her doctor, and after, when she was putting her clothes back on, she put her dress on backward with the open zipper in front. Fortunately, she wore a slip, but still. She should have been mortified—I certainly was. Anyway, he wants her to see a neurologist.”

“A neurologist,” I repeated. I sat down on the edge of the tub, suddenly feeling ill. “Oh, no.” I kept the water running, billowing steam now filling the room and obscuring my reflection in the cracked mirror over the sink.

I’d last seen my mother two Christmases ago.

While selecting wineglasses to place on the dining table, I’d noticed my mother’s prized Waterford crystal barware covered in a heavy layer of dust. It was more than just a single week of the housekeeper’s forgetfulness.

It looked like the shelves and glasses hadn’t been touched for months.

In the past, Mother always gave a thorough inspection after our housekeeper, Patricia, had cleaned and would let her know if something wasn’t up to Mother’s standards.

Those dusty glasses were the equivalent of Mother leaving her slip exposed in a public place. I’d been eager to head back to the West Coast and didn’t want to find a reason to extend my visit and so had brushed my thoughts aside, thinking of dozens of reasons to explain the lapse.

“Yes,” Addie continued. “The neurologist will need to run some tests.”

“When is the appointment?” I asked, the feelings of animosity toward my sister subsiding.

“I didn’t make one,” she snapped. “You get the whole summer off, so it would make sense if you could spend it here.”

I thought of my summer plans of learning to cook.

Of hiking in the Cascades with some of my fellow teachers.

Of finally starting a blog containing all the bird wisdom I’d learned from Aunt Sassy.

Returning to the place I’d worked so hard to get away from was not anywhere on the list. “Look,” I said.

“Mother will be seventy this year. It seems to me that small memory lapses are a normal part of aging and—”

“Those aren’t small memory lapses , Phoebe. And seventy isn’t even considered old anymore. I need you to do this. I’m working a lot of night shifts now. Plus, I have Ophelia.” She added her daughter almost as an afterthought.