Page 20 of That Last Carolina Summer

“Your grandmother?” I stared back at him for a long moment until I realized who he was talking about.

“Celeste Fitch,” I said slowly as I put the pieces together.

“No. My mother’s GP referred her.” I shook my head.

“I saw your grandmother just an hour ago, and she never mentioned that her grandson was a neurologist.”

I waited for him to offer an explanation, but he was staring at me with the kind of expression a person might use when finding an unwanted visitor on their doorstep.

Blood rushed to my cheeks. I couldn’t stop staring at his eyes and remembering the last and only time we’d met. To fill the awkward silence, I said, “Why would you think she might have sent me here? Because our families have a history?”

His mouth twisted as if I’d said something amusing. “ A history? That’s one way to put it.”

Addie and our mother returned from the restroom, sparing me from responding. Addie smiled her pageant smile, her radar no doubt sensing an attractive male within pouncing distance, and offered her hand to shake. “I’m Adeline Manigault, but you can call me Addie.”

Dr. Fitch took her hand and shook it. “Nice to meet you,” he said without smiling. “Liam Fitch. Although you might remember me as Liam Simmonds.”

I remembered the name I’d seen on the empty folder in my father’s desk. “Simmonds?” I repeated.

Addie froze, her expression shifting from flirtatious to suspicious. She pulled her hand away.

“You’re Celeste’s grandson,” I said, even though I was now as confused as Addie appeared to be.

“We need to go,” she said, drawing our mother’s arm through hers.

“Addie. Stop. What are you doing?”

“We need to find another doctor. He’s not the right doctor to give our mother the care she needs.”

I stared at her with a mixture of surprise and anger. “No,” I said a little too loudly as the woman and her elderly father both looked at me, but I didn’t care. The lack of sleep compounded by the stress of the morning’s events numbed me.

“No,” I said again, even more loudly. “I made the appointment just like you asked, and I’ll be damned if you change your mind now.”

“Phoebe, watch your language.” I turned my attention to my mother, and it was only then that I noticed that the bodice of her dress was incorrectly buttoned.

“Sorry, Mother.”

“It’s all right. We all make mistakes.”

Her smile deflated my anger. This woman was still my strong, opinionated, and elegant mother.

The mother who hadn’t wanted a dog but left the faded spot on the stairs as a reminder of the pet I’d loved with all my heart.

The mother who called me every birthday first thing in the morning and always said “I love you” before hanging up.

Despite the mixed feelings I harbored for her, she was still my mother.

I turned to Addie. “Feel free to leave or stay. But Mother needs to see the doctor now, and she and I are staying for her appointment.”

“You can’t be serious, Phoebe. We know his family.”

The emphasis on the word family brought back the memory of me telling Celeste about how my father had sued the boy who’d saved my life for breaking my ribs and how she hadn’t said anything.

Nor had she mentioned that her grandson was a neurologist in Mount Pleasant.

It was almost as if she didn’t want me to make the inevitable connection between her and Liam.

The connection certainly explained why there’d be a folder with their name on it in my father’s desk. But not why it had been emptied.

“May I say something?”

The three of us turned toward the doctor, my mother the only one with a benign smile. She’d been raised to never question authority, especially that in a white coat.

“I’m not going to take offense that you might question my professionalism or judgment in treating your mother because of a past history.

As distasteful as it was, it has nothing at all to do with why you’re here.

I’m experienced and qualified to be your mother’s neurologist, but if you would rather I refer you to another practice—”

“No,” I said, almost without thought. Years of contradicting my sister made it my go-to response, but it was more than that.

As a boy, this man had run into a thunderstorm to save a girl who was stupid enough to be caught outside in a storm.

He had breathed his own breath into my lungs and restarted my heart.

I didn’t doubt that this was the doctor with whom I could trust my mother’s care. “We’re staying here.”

“Mother, let’s go.” Addie began walking away, tugging on Mother’s arm as if she were a toddler.

Elizabeth Manigault dug in her heels and pulled her arm away. “I don’t want to go with you.”

I was as shocked as Addie, but I didn’t feel like gloating over my win. This wasn’t a competition.

“Fine,” Addie spat. “It’s your funeral.” She headed toward the exit, the soft close of the door robbing her of a final slam.

I fought the urge to run after her to make sure she remembered that I had the car keys and that she could call an Uber.

She’d always been the one with the big dreams, but I’d always been the practical sister who took care of the planning and details.

This should have meant that we would fit together like yin and yang and that we could form a partnership to help care for our mother. But life was never that easy.

Turning his attention to my mother, the doctor said, “I’m Dr. Fitch.

Shall we?” He indicated his office where I could see a watercolor of a ruby-throated hummingbird hung between two large windows, and I knew without asking that his grandmother, Celeste, was the artist. It had been painted against a dark, cloudy background making the iridescent green feathers almost glow on the canvas.

The painting made me think about how hummingbirds are the only birds in the animal kingdom that can fly backward, and I wondered at the painting’s prominence inside Liam’s office and if he also sometimes found himself wishing he could fly back in time and do things differently.

Mother gave him a gracious smile as if she were doing him a favor, and I followed her inside the office just as the sky lit up with a flash of light followed by a roll of thunder that shook my bones.