Page 48 of That Last Carolina Summer

“Some male birds, like northern cardinals, will fight their own image in any reflective surface. They see their reflection as a competitor and will attack to drive it off. I’ve seen people exhibit similar behavior as self-flagellation over a perceived failure.

I think this world beats us up enough that we shouldn’t have to see ourselves as the enemy.

We should be more like the mockingbird, singing only because it wants to. ”

Excerpt from the blog The Thing with Feathers

Celeste

IN THE WEEK following Elizabeth’s escape to the cemetery, a tangible chill had formed between Addie and Phoebe. Not that there hadn’t been a decided frostiness between the sisters before the incident, but it now seemed much more intractable.

I almost wished that they would take to verbal arguments so I could understand better what their estrangement was about, but Addie was spending even less time at the house than before, coming home just to shower and change before heading out again.

We hadn’t seen Dale since the gift from the art store, and I wondered about his sudden absence.

I’d tried asking Addie, but she seemed to be avoiding me even more than she was avoiding Phoebe.

She had at least taken her mother for her appointment with Liam, and she’d gone with Ophelia and Annie to a picnic at Alhambra Park, which reassured me that she was aware of her responsibilities even though she didn’t always show it.

As an independent observer, it seemed to me that she acted aloof only to aggravate her sister, which wasn’t unusual between siblings.

Julie and Liam had had a similar dynamic because they were so close in age.

But their squabbles had been short-lived and directly related to an actual incident like forgetting to put gas in the tank of the car they shared.

This thing between Addie and Phoebe was different.

Something simmered beneath the surface. There was a piece to this puzzle that I couldn’t find, and I needed to stop looking so I could focus on Elizabeth and not ancient family history.

“I’m bored,” Will said yet again from his position on the porch hammock next to Ophelia.

It was her turn to pick their morning activity, and she’d selected reading.

Phoebe had taken them both to the library the day before, and it was too soon to be bored.

I blamed his lack of enthusiasm for reading on his mother, whose literary pursuits seemed to consist of fashion and celebrity-gossip magazines.

We just needed to find the right books for him, and I was determined to keep trying while I still had influence.

He was already ten, so I knew my time was limited.

I peered at the children through the porch screen from where I stood in front of the camellia bushes.

They sat on opposite ends of the swing with Annie in between them, her head on Ophelia’s lap.

“If you’re really bored, Will, I’ll be happy to give you something to do,” I offered.

“Like scraping chipped paint off the front fence. It needs to be repainted, too.”

“I thought child labor was illegal in this country.”

“A jury of my peers would never convict, dear, so tread carefully. Now, what’ll it be? Reading or scraping?”

Ophelia elbowed him. “I told you to pick a different book. Here—read with me. Mine’s really good, and I can catch you up on what’s already happened. And you can let me know if you get stuck on any of the words.”

“Funny.” Will moved closer to Ophelia and held on to the other half of the book. I smiled to myself when I read the title: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe . If I owned a cell phone, I’d have snapped a picture because Liam would never have believed it otherwise.

I turned to Elizabeth, who sat on an Adirondack chair in front of the unruly camellias.

Judging by their tangled and dark interiors, it was clear they had been neglected for some time.

I’d taken it upon myself to ensure that Elizabeth’s prized camellias were in top form for the fall blooming season.

I’d wielded the pruning shears while she held open the garbage bag.

She kept on dropping it and then forgetting what we were doing so that I eventually began to drop the clippings on the ground.

It was another chore I could ask Will to do in exchange for ice cream at the Pitt Street Pharmacy.

Despite keeping us both hydrated and in the shade as much as possible, I was about ready to succumb to heatstroke if I had to stay outside much longer.

“Elizabeth, are you ready for a quick lie-down before lunch?” I asked as I reached out to straighten her straw bonnet.

She belonged on the cover of Southern Living magazine with the glossy leaves of the camellias as the backdrop and her still-glowing complexion evident beneath her hat.

I brought Elizabeth to her room and heard Phoebe arrive as I was closing the bedroom door. I went to meet her in the kitchen. “How did it go?” I asked.

She’d had a meeting that morning with the estate attorney, partly to reassure herself that she did have the authority to act on their mother’s behalf in financial and health care matters and partly to get a better idea of her mother’s finances.

She dropped her purse on the counter. “Very well. Daddy took care of everything, so we won’t have to worry about our mother’s ability to pay her bills or for home maintenance or health care.

She’ll be fine. I just needed to make sure everything is in place before I leave.

I also set up automatic payments for Ophelia’s tuition, since there was money set aside for her education.

” She took a deep breath and smiled. “I can’t tell you what a relief it is. ”

“I’m sure. And I know Addie will be relieved, too.”

“I don’t think any of it has even crossed her mind, so I hope so.”

“Aren’t you being a little harsh?” I asked. “I’m sure it hasn’t been easy for Addie, living here and witnessing your mother’s decline.”

“Really? And here I was thinking you were Team Phoebe.”

“Team Phoebe?”

She gave a small laugh. “Just something Liam said. To show that he was on my side.”

I studied her closely, saw the insecurity she worked so hard to hide. “There are no sides here, Phoebe. If there were, I’d say we were all on Team Elizabeth.”

She flushed. “I know. You’re right. This animosity between Addie and me, it’s like a bad habit. How old do we have to be to get over it?”

“As your mother becomes more and more dependent on you and your sister, and the parent–child role reverses, hopefully you and Addie will see each other in a new light. Watching a parent decline is one of the hardest things we face in life. Count yourself fortunate that you have a sibling to share the burden. Dementia has been called the longest goodbye for a reason, and it can be a long, lonely road.”

Phoebe blinked several times, and I thought she might cry. “That’s the hardest part, I think. It’s like watching my childhood being erased, you know?”

“I do.” I hugged her, and after her initial surprise, she hugged me back.

After a long moment, I pulled back. “Your mother will be out for the count for at least an hour, and there’s noth ing better than decluttering to clear the mind.

Would you like to help me clean out the large wardrobe in the upstairs hall?

I’ve noticed that the door can barely latch, and yesterday when I went to pull out a blanket for your mother, there was a small landslide.

I managed to shove everything back in, but I think it would be helpful to take it all out and only put back in things that should be in there.

Right now it looks like there might be some overflow from Addie’s closet. ”

Phoebe grinned. “I can’t believe that I’m excited about this. It’s been driving me crazy since I got here and was looking for clean sheets for the guest room. My mother used to keep everything so nice and organized.”

I led the way up the stairs, and Phoebe grabbed a desk chair from her room and put it in front of the wardrobe. “You are not sitting on the floor, Celeste. I’ll hand you things for the Keep pile for you to fold and stack. The rest I’m just throwing in a Toss or Giveaway pile. Sound good?”

“Sounds good,” I said with a mock salute.

Most of what was in the wardrobe were old bedsheets and frayed bath towels.

Those ended up in the Toss pile along with dozens of mismatched socks that apparently belonged to Addie.

Also found, shoved in a back corner, were large Ziploc bags filled with costume jewelry with broken clasps and missing pieces.

Phoebe held up a pillowcase with torn lace edging, its sides bulging with old makeup and hair ribbons.

“Mother used to give Addie an ultimatum that if her room wasn’t picked up and her bed made, she wasn’t allowed to go out.

This is where she shoved everything. I can’t believe Mother never suspected. ”

“Oh, I’m sure she did. She just knew which battles were worth fighting.” I pointed at what looked like a book spine behind a balled-up beach towel. “What’s that?”

Phoebe got down on her hands and knees and reached into the back of the bottom shelf.

She pulled out the beach towel—wrapped around a salt-crusted bathing suit—before pulling out a stack of paperback novels.

“Ha! Eloisa James and Julia Quinn.” She held up two books with clinch covers.

“I begged Addie to let me read these when she was done, but she hid them because she said I was too young. Like I hadn’t already read Mother’s Judith Krantz and Rosemary Rogers novels she’d hidden in her cedar chest. Everything I knew about sex I learned from those romance books. ”

“That’s alarming,” I said with a smile. “So your mother never gave you The Talk.”