Page 28 of That Last Carolina Summer

“A bird flying into the house and dying supposedly foretells death. When I was a teenager, a bluebird flew into my house, but it died despite our attempts to guide it out. Nobody I knew died that year or the next, but that didn’t stop me from trying to decipher the meaning.

Probably because we all have a part of us that wants a peek at the last page of a book or some kind of guide for this life’s journey, so we can avoid the potholes. ”

Excerpt from the blog The Thing with Feathers

Phoebe

I SAT IN my mother’s darkened bedroom, the glow from the laptop screen highlighting her sleeping form in the bed. I hadn’t had a chance to go anywhere to get my phone battery charged because I’d been with her all day, and I was using it to power the Wi-Fi again and hoping it would last.

The scratches and whirs of the marsh night’s busy orchestra drifted through the screen along with the pungent scent of the pluff mud, taking me back to a time before the nightmares started, when my father and Aunt Sassy were still alive, Addie was my part-time ally, and my mother wasn’t a stranger.

On nights when I’d heard Addie sneak out, I’d sit up waiting for her to come home, unable to sleep unless we were all under one roof. Being back home was like opening a time capsule, the memories stored behind the wallpaper and between the heart-of-pine floorboards.

I stared at the screen as I waited for the slow browser to load, fighting a rising gnaw of anger at my sister for putting us in this situation.

As I’d predicted, no coercion, begging, or bribing could get Mother to leave the house for the night, even to escape the oppressive heat at Celeste’s.

My father had once said that he’d known brick walls that were more pliable than my mother once she’d made up her mind.

I’d found it funny until he’d added that I was just like her.

I’d helped Ophelia pack her overnight things in a small grocery bag since she didn’t have her own suitcase and then sent Addie a text to let her know that I’d given permission for Ophelia to spend the night at Celeste’s house.

She hadn’t responded, which alleviated any guilt I might have had about making decisions about her daughter without prior approval.

Then my mother and I shared the takeout dinner Celeste had ordered, eating it in the candlelit dining room.

Staring at the computer screen now, I unbuttoned two more buttons on my sleeveless blouse in an attempt to cool off but brushed aside the temptation to take off my blouse and bra and sit there in my shorts and underwear.

My mother would have a heart attack if she woke up and found me that way, and she’d never let me hear the end of it from either side of the grave, assuming she remembered it at all.

The upside to having absolutely nothing else to do was that I’d been on the laptop since Mother had fallen asleep and I still had thirty percent battery life left.

I’d continue to use my hot spot until I got down to five percent of battery life, planning to use my car charger as soon as Addie got back.

I worked fast, setting up more online accounts and trying to hack into Mother’s AOL email.

I didn’t feel right using my personal email for her banking and utilities, but if I was going to keep track of everything, I’d need to have access to hers.

Her screen name self-populated, but the password wouldn’t.

I only had one more guess at the password before I got thrown out and was feeling desperate. She had once kept all her passwords on her phone in her contacts, but when I’d found her phone at the bottom of her purse, the battery was dead.

My gaze settled on a silver frame on the desk holding another photo of Charlie as a baby, lying on his stomach with a blanket draped over his head.

There was an identical one of Addie at about the same age.

If there’d been one of me, I’d never seen it.

I liked to tell myself that my mother had come to her senses by the time I came along and saw how ridiculous and clichéd the pose was.

I sat up, staring at the blinking cursor, the answer suddenly obvious. Being careful to type it in correctly, I entered Charlie’s birthday and was immediately greeted by the AOL welcome screen. I mentally patted myself on the back for the single win of the day.

I scrolled down the long list of unread emails. Not surprisingly, most emails were from her various clubs or sale notices from her favorite boutiques or just spam, but nothing that resembled an invoice.

I was about to close it out when I spotted an email from eight months prior.

It was from the Charleston County public library system, and it caught my attention because it had an attachment.

The email was brief, stating only that the information from the archives that my mother had requested regarding the last published article concerning the referenced subject matter was attached.

I quickly clicked on the link, my mouth drying when I read the headline.

POLICE CALL OFF SEARCH FOR LOCAL MISSING GIRL

The article was only a single paragraph, telling me nothing that I didn’t already know about the disappearance of Julie Fitch. But the one thing it couldn’t tell me was why my mother had requested the article in what seemed to be her last lucid months.

I scrolled up and down the list of emails looking for anything that might explain her seemingly random interest so late after the actual incident.

Maybe that’s how a deteriorating mind worked, bringing forward events as if they were recent.

Maybe she’d simply wanted confirmation that a suddenly remembered event wasn’t current.

I glanced at the sleeping form of my mother and felt a fresh heartbreak at the knowledge that I’d never be able to ask her.

I closed down AOL, wanting to keep working on setting up online accounts, but it was almost too hot to think.

After making sure everything was turned off to save precious battery life, I checked on my mother to make sure her skin felt cool to the touch.

A three-quarter moon had risen in the sky, allowing enough light to see her face, the bluish glow softening her features so that I could see Ophelia’s face.

It unnerved me. Ophelia looked like me, and I didn’t resemble my mother at all.

Needing fresh air, I headed downstairs to the front porch, using the light from the moon to guide me.

I sat down on one of the rockers but kept it still, not wanting to exert any energy or make myself sweat even more.

I’d have to burn the memory of this heat onto my brain to revisit every time I felt the magnetic pull of the tides drawing me back.

I was contemplating taking another ice-cold shower before trying to sleep on my mother’s floor when a car turned into the street, the two headlamps like spotlights on the drooping oak tree, reflecting its shiny leaves.

Thinking it might be Addie, I prepared to run inside and hide in my room. I was too tired and hot to deal with her, my anger over her obliviousness regarding our mother and Ophelia like a huge stain I couldn’t rub out. Neither of us wanted an explosive argument right now.

I was halfway to the door when I realized it was a pickup truck and not a sedan. I watched it pull into the driveway, recognizing the truck from earlier that afternoon when Liam had arrived to pick up Celeste.

A tall, familiar form climbed out of the pickup. I rushed to the bottom step, worst-case scenarios involving Ophelia racing through my mind. “Liam? Is everything all right?”

He held up his hand. “Yes. Sorry, didn’t mean to alarm you by just showing up. I texted, but I think your phone is off. I tried calling the landline, but it’s been disconnected.”

“Of course.” We stood awkwardly facing each other in the darkness, and I realized this was the first time we’d been alone together since that stormy afternoon twenty-four years ago.

He’d changed into a T-shirt and shorts, so he looked more like the boy I’d remembered and less like the doctor.

Moonlight reflected off something around his neck, and I thought again of the shark’s tooth, another reminder of our brief encounter that had become a bruise that wouldn’t completely go away.

“I brought you some supplies to get through the rest of the weekend.” He opened the back door of his double cab and pulled a large cooler from the seat.

He brought it over to the porch, setting it down with a clunk and the sound of shifting ice.

He returned to the truck and retrieved something from the floor of the back seat, the clinking of glass making me thirsty and reminding me of how hot I was.

Shutting the door with his hip, he approached with a six-pack of beer. “Celeste told me what brand you like and thought you might need something cold.”

He popped off the top and handed me the bottle. “Thanks.” I held the cold bottle against my neck, feeling his gaze, then took a long, slow drink.

“Mind if I join you?”

I wanted to say no. The pointed edges of the dream pressed against my consciousness. Whether it was his presence or the memory of the part he’d inadvertently played in its conception made me want to step back inside the house and close the door.

Sensing my hesitation, he said, “I should bring the cooler into the kitchen. I brought more ice and water, as well as watermelon and oranges to help you and your mother stay hydrated. Also...” he reached into his front pocket “...a battery pack for your phone and...” reaching into his other pocket, he pulled out a flashlight “...this. You can still use your candles, but I wouldn’t recommend those in any room where your mother might find herself alone.

” He placed the items on the table next to my rocking chair.