That Last Carolina Summer

In the summer of 2001, nine-year-old Phoebe Manigault is checking crab pots on the dock behind her family's home in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, when lightning strikes her. A boy she does not recognize performs CPR, breaking several of her ribs. Phoebe glimpses his startling green eyes and the shark's tooth on his leather cord before he vanishes. The strike leaves a purple scar across her back and shoulder but also gives her premonition dreams about people she has recently encountered. Her older sister, Adeline (Addie), exploits this ability as a party trick until their mother, Elizabeth, a former Miss South Carolina, calls Phoebe's notoriety her greatest embarrassment. Phoebe learns to keep her visions private. The strike also triggers a recurring nightmare: a car on a rain-soaked bridge plunges into dark water, one person surfaces and crawls to shore, and the other does not.

Twenty-four years later, Phoebe is a 33-year-old science teacher in Bend, Oregon, far from South Carolina's Lowcountry, the coastal region of tidal marshes she still misses. The dreams largely stopped once she moved, and she has not spoken meaningfully with Addie in nearly a decade. When Addie calls to say Elizabeth has been getting lost while driving and forgetting to pick up Addie's nine-year-old daughter, Ophelia, from school, Phoebe resists returning. Addie works night shifts and cannot manage alone. Their argument revives old grievances, and Elizabeth is heard asking for their father, Charles, who has been dead nearly 10 years. Phoebe's Aunt Sassy, Charles's deaf sister who lived with the family and taught Phoebe about birds and the natural world, died of pancreatic cancer years earlier. Phoebe reluctantly agrees to come home.

She finds the family's 1902 house in disrepair: no food, soiled linens, a broken microwave. Elizabeth does not recognize Phoebe, insisting her only child is Adeline. Ophelia, quiet and unkempt, largely fends for herself. Phoebe discovers that Addie has been shoving their mother's unopened mail, much of it stamped FINAL NOTICE, into their late father's study. She also finds an empty folder labeled SIMMONDS, a name that means nothing to her yet. The electricity is soon shut off for nonpayment.

At a bakery, Phoebe meets Celeste Fitch, a tall older woman with striking green eyes who once substituted as an art teacher at Ophelia's school. She schedules a neurology appointment for Elizabeth with a doctor named L. M. Fitch, noting the shared surname without connecting the two. Celeste reveals that her granddaughter Julie disappeared almost two decades ago during her senior year at Wando High School. Julie stayed late for choir practice one evening and was never seen again. Celeste changed the family surname from Simmonds to her maiden name, Fitch, after the Manigaults became entangled in their lives. She tells her grandson Liam she hopes Phoebe's premonitions might reveal what happened to Julie.

At the neurologist's office, Phoebe recognizes the doctor's eyes: Liam Fitch is the boy who saved her life. She now understands the SIMMONDS folder and realizes Celeste withheld their connection. She also learns that her father sued Liam's family over the ribs broken during CPR. Addie recognizes the name and tries to leave, but Phoebe overrules her, trusting the man who once saved her. Liam diagnoses Elizabeth with significant short-term memory loss and dementia-related mood swings and prescribes medications that can only alleviate symptoms.

Phoebe restores order: opening overdue mail, setting up online payments, and creating medical accounts. On Elizabeth's laptop, she discovers that her mother requested a newspaper article months earlier about the police calling off the search for Julie Fitch. Celeste offers to serve as Elizabeth's paid companion, citing her nursing background and acknowledging she hopes Phoebe's premonitions will reveal something about Julie. Phoebe agrees. Celeste implements daily routines, and Will, Liam's 10-year-old son and Celeste's great-grandson, bonds with Ophelia. The household stabilizes.

Phoebe's premonitions return. The bridge dream grows more detailed: She sees a South Carolina license plate on the sinking car and a small shiny object glinting in the water. She and Liam grow closer, sharing a kiss on the dock, but Phoebe pulls away when the dream intrudes. Liam suggests the dream may not be a future event but a past one her mind needs to acknowledge.

Elizabeth's lucid moments yield buried truths. She tells Celeste that Phoebe was "different" but that "different doesn't mean less beautiful." She drives to the cemetery carrying the black pearl pendant necklace Addie wears, a replacement for one Addie reported as lost years ago, and tells Phoebe it is time for "a reckoning." Addie, meanwhile, continues leaving Ophelia unsupervised and dating an abusive man named Joe. Yet she begins painting again, producing a watercolor that depicts a scene strikingly similar to Phoebe's bridge dream. Dale Prioleau, a lawyer at their late father's firm who has always loved Addie, reenters her life. Addie tells Phoebe she feels she is "being punished," though she will not say for what.

Celeste pieces together a disturbing connection. In Julie's choral sheet music, she finds notes from someone begging Julie for a ride. She compares the handwriting to Addie's yearbook signature and confirms the match. She studies Addie's painting and recognizes the glittering object. Combined with Elizabeth's attempts to dispose of the replacement necklace, the evidence converges: Addie lied about barely knowing Julie, and the necklace ties her to Julie's disappearance.

On Phoebe's birthday, Addie leaves the house with Joe. Elizabeth, trying to launch the family's jonboat, a small flat-bottomed vessel, falls on the dock and breaks her leg. Ophelia drifts into the storm-tossed marsh in the boat. Phoebe swims through a violent thunderstorm to reach her niece and tows the boat back. As they near the dock, lightning strikes the cedar tree. Addie, who returned moments earlier, shoves Phoebe clear of the blast, saving her life but suffering cardiac arrest.

In the ambulance, the dream comes with full clarity. Phoebe sees Addie driving and Julie in the passenger seat, singing together. The car veers off a bridge and plunges into the water. Addie surfaces and dives repeatedly but cannot free Julie. The shiny object is Addie's original black pearl necklace, the one she claimed to have lost, which sank with Julie's car.

At the hospital, Addie confesses. She convinced Julie to drive her to a party after choir practice. It was raining, and Addie insisted on driving. The car went off the bridge, and Addie could not free Julie. She wanted to go to the police, but their father forbade it. Phoebe tells Addie she must confess to Celeste so Julie can be found and properly buried. Dale, who overheard from the doorway, pledges to stand by Addie and find a defense attorney. Celeste, who pieced the story together independently, is grieving but chooses compassion, asking only that Addie approach the authorities herself.

Phoebe visits her unconscious mother, apologizes for not seeing Elizabeth fully, and forgives the favoritism. She acknowledges that Elizabeth gave her Aunt Sassy to bridge the gap between them and promises to care for the family. She tells Liam she will stay in South Carolina permanently. She belongs in the Lowcountry and always has. They kiss on the dock as a marsh wren sings.