Page 53 of That Last Carolina Summer

“You won’t know unless you try. And if you know where I can find a needle and thread, I can fix any shoulder strap or shorten a hem in less time than it will take for you to shower. So you go on ahead and put any possibilities on the bed. I’ll be up shortly.”

“You coming, Ophelia?” Phoebe asked.

Ophelia wrinkled her nose. “Do I have to?”

Phoebe looked at me, and I nodded.

“No, you can stay here,” Phoebe said. “Just don’t forget to bring the cooler and fishing rods inside when you’re done.

“Yep.” Ophelia gave her a thumbs-up.

“Yes, ma’am,” Elizabeth said sternly. “Please mind your manners.”

It never failed to surprise me what the mind chose to hold on to and what it let go. Maybe it wasn’t a choice at all.

“Yes, ma’am,” Ophelia repeated.

A short while later, I told Ophelia to start packing up and stood to take Elizabeth back to the house and into the air-conditioning.

My gaze caught sight of Addie’s easel, and I realized that Phoebe had forgotten to take it inside.

I couldn’t bring the easel, but I could at least bring in the paper pad so it wasn’t left out in the elements.

I moved to the front of the easel to make the pad easier to remove but froze with my hands held aloft as my gaze fell on the scene before me.

It was awful and terrible and frighteningly beautiful all at the same time.

The harsh brush strokes and congealed color framed the scene of what could have been a night view of the marsh, but my eyes couldn’t focus on any part without being pulled away by separate swirls of dark colors.

I slid off my glasses trying to get a closer look.

It was indisputably a close-up rendering of the marsh at night shown in a wide arc of light as if from a car’s headlights.

But it didn’t appear to be the view from behind the Manigaults’ house with Sullivan’s Island and the lighthouse visible in the distance.

There was no way of telling exactly where it was, but the waterways of the Lowcountry were like close family relatives, interconnected by so many branches that it was hard to tell where they began or where they ended.

A dark shadow cut across the painting, leading to a hint of light on the edge of the paper.

This wasn’t an omniscient point of view, but one of first person where the narrator was the artist and not a silent bystander.

The tall grass bent away, as if the viewer were stepping on it to move forward, revealing a small, glittering object in the water.

I leaned closer, trying to identify it, realizing only that it wasn’t a fish or something that belonged in the marsh.

There were no lightning bugs to relieve the solid night, and I wondered what Addie was trying to show except for a forward movement in a dark space where there was no light.

Like being inside a person’s head who’d taken a wrong turn and found themselves hopelessly lost.

I stepped back, thinking I understood. The angry, muted blobs of circular brush strokes showing the thoughts of someone truly and irrevocably lost with no hope of turning around.

I leaned closer toward a cluster of dark paint in the foreground at what I thought might be a dead tree, and perched on top was a thick brown bird with a flattened head and pointed wings, its dull eyes perusing the viewer, its large mouth open midscream.

“Miss Celeste? Can we go in now?”

I turned to Ophelia, although it took me a moment to remember where I was and what I was doing.

“Yes, dear. Of course.” I picked up the paper pad before collecting Elizabeth and heading back to the house, Ophelia following with the fishing rods clanging against the cooler.

It was close to nine thirty when Addie returned from work.

Elizabeth was asleep upstairs, and Will and Ophelia were sprawled out on the floor in Ophelia’s room reading with bowls of pretzels and popcorn to keep them happy.

Annie as usual was curled up against Ophelia’s side, occasionally smiling in her sleep to show her utter contentment.

If Ophelia weren’t such a perfect target for my dog’s devotion and adoration, I might have been jealous.

I was tidying up the kitchen in preparation for leaving when Addie entered.

She remained standoffish with me despite doing everything I could to reassure her that I wasn’t there to stir up trouble.

After discovering that she loved oatmeal peanut butter cookies, I made sure there were always freshly baked ones in the cookie jar.

I’d come to care about Elizabeth and the rest of the Manigaults.

Since Will had moved away with his mother, I’d missed the daily business of taking care of another human.

Liam didn’t count because he was a fully functioning adult—according to him—but I hoped our frequent meals spent together in the house where I’d raised him and Julie made him feel grounded.

I could only hope that Phoebe’s imminent departure wouldn’t knock him off his perch.

“How was work?” I asked, drying my hands on a dish towel.

“Fine.” She lifted the lid to the jar on the counter and pulled out a cookie. She closed the lid without offering me one and took a small nibble.

“Busy?” I asked.

“Very.” She took another bite of the cookie.

“Your mother’s asleep, but Will and Ophelia are in her room reading. At least they were when I last checked. I told them if they got tired of reading, they could watch a movie on Ophelia’s iPad.”

“Great,” she said, slowly chewing on another bite.

I picked up my purse and keys. “I guess I’ll leave you in charge now.”

She’d stopped chewing, her gaze focused on the kitchen table behind me where I’d left her art pad.

“You left your painting out on the dock, and I didn’t want it to get ruined so I brought it inside.”

Addie approached the table and touched the edge of the pad delicately.

“It’s different from your other work, but it’s very good. There’s a depth of emotion in it that few artists are capable of conveying with any medium.”

Very softly, she said, “It’s Phoebe’s dream. The only one she’s had where she’s not sure if it was a premonition for something that has already happened or is yet to happen.”

I frowned. “Still? I thought she wasn’t having dreams anymore.”

She turned to look at me. “She wasn’t. But now that she’s back...”

I moved closer, studying the painting, trying to see more than before. I gently touched the bird with my index finger, then slid down to the wide, dark shadow I’d seen before. Except this time I thought I knew what it was. “Is this a road?”

She nodded.

“And I think I recognize a chuck-will’s-widow in this tree.” I pointed to the same brown spot I’d noticed before.

“Yeah. I don’t remember if Phoebe told me there was one in her dream, but I wanted it to be there.”

“Why is that?”

Her eyes were distant. “Because I hate them. Since I was a little girl they were always out there in the summertime. Mocking me.”

“Mocking you? But why, Addie? I’ve seen the photographs from your childhood.

You were loved by your parents and given every advantage.

And you had a sister who adored you.” I tilted my head, examining her perfect face.

“You were also born with a rare beauty that no doubt opened a lot of doors for you.”

She grunted. “Right. And closed just as many. Don’t get me wrong.

Being pretty did have its advantages. To a point.

I think I was twelve when I realized that people took one look at me and immediately assumed I was an airhead.

I loved math—can you believe that? And I was good at it, almost as good as Phoebe.

Phoebe has a much better singing voice, too, but Mother encouraged me to join the choir but not Phoebe.

She was left alone to look at birds and bugs with Aunt Sassy because that was her passion. ”

Addie shrugged and turned back to the table. “I thought my passion was painting, but Mother wanted me to focus on the beauty pageants—her way of telling me to stay in my lane.”

“I’m sorry. I know that must have been hard. Did your mother have a sister?”

She shook her head. “No. Just a brother. He went to Harvard Law School and stayed in Boston, so we didn’t really ever see him.

” She let out a bitter laugh. “He practiced for a couple of years before quitting and joining a band where he was the lead vocalist. He and his partner live in Beacon Hill and own a beach cottage on St. Simons. I only know this because I overheard my parents talking one night.”

“Eavesdropping is truly one of the best ways to find out what’s really going on, isn’t it?”

Addie gave me the first genuine smile I’d seen since we’d met. “Mother once admitted to me that she was the one who’d wanted to be a lawyer, but she married young and then had three babies. I guess marrying a lawyer was the closest she could get without losing the approval of her parents.”

“That would explain a lot.” I leaned closer to the painting, noticing again the bright spot submerged just beneath the surface of the water.

A small object, sinking into the dark water.

I squinted trying to make it come into focus.

“Is that why you got pregnant with Ophelia? To jump off the path your mother had designed for you?”

“I love my daughter. I had her because I wanted her.”

“I never said that you didn’t. But maybe having your daughter solved two problems at once—you got your mother’s attention, and you had the child you wanted. And you stayed here while Phoebe moved to the West Coast.”

Addie nodded. “She was always the brave one.” Her lips twisted.

“I was jealous of that. If she wanted to do something, she found a way and did it. Including moving across the country to a place she’d never been before to start a new life.

It’s the one thing she had that I didn’t.

It made me hate her and love her at the same time.

There’s something so wonderful about a girl who believes in herself and goes out and creates her own adventures. ”

“And if Ophelia did something courageous, you’d approve?”

“Are you asking me if it would make me love her more?”

“Would it?”

She didn’t answer, and I knew I’d pushed too far.

I was usually good at getting people to open up, while at the same time never knowing when to quit.

Addie was an enigma to me, her relationships with her mother and sister complicated enough that I felt the need to untangle them to be a better caretaker for Elizabeth.

But I felt Addie chafing under my words and quickly changed the topic.

I turned back to the painting, at the heavily pigmented swirls and slight divots on the paper, imagining the force exerted to create them.

“There’s so much anger in this painting.

Or maybe anguish might be more accurate.

Is this a translation of Phoebe’s emotions related to the dream?

Or something that’s very specific to you? ”

I saw the shadow fall on her face, the previous openness between us disappearing as if a door had been shut.

My question about the object in the water would have to wait.

“It’s none of your business,” she said, flipping the cover over the painting and lifting the pad of paper. “Weren’t you just leaving?”

Without waiting for a reply, she headed for the doorway. “I think you know your way out,” she called without a glance back.