Page 8 of What You Never Knew

The boat is fast, its engine purring. You’d never know it was a relic from 1975. Like riding a bike could be replaced with like driving a boat, I think to myself. As soon as I’m out in the open water, it all comes back to me. My confidence and assuredness is restored as I navigate the boat across the choppy surface of the lake. The wind whips away the sluggishness of my hangover; the bright sun burns through my insecurities and my grip on the steering wheel grounds me to this place.

A whole new flock of cottages have been built along the shoreline, some so monstrous in size that they look as though they simply swatted trees out of the way before plopping down to greedily claim the land. Seeing the progress that’s happened in the time I’ve been away makes me wonder if the opposite has happened to Avril Island. Will the elements have eaten away at the wood? The ground shifted so much that it has unsettled the very structure? Will everything have fallen in on itself from loneliness and neglect?

There’s a point that stretches out into the lake where our bay begins. It’s thin to start but branches out like a hand—a hand belonging to a giant made from rocks, trees, and earth. The bay’s gatekeeper, ready to grab any unwanted guests and toss their boat back across the lake. As a kid coming into the bay, I always hugged the shore, flying past those rocky fingertips. Daring that hand to reach out and get me. Triumphant when it did not.

That point comes into view. It seems more land than hand from my adult vantage point. I slip past it, no longer fearing that it could come alive and catch my boat in its giant fingers—the fears I have now are much greater.

There are several islands in our bay, all of them privately owned, except for the biggest, which houses Windset resort. It was built in the 1940s and went through several transformations by the time my family bought property up here. My mother used it as an escape, slipping off for a round of golf or tennis in the afternoon, dinner, drinks, and dancing in the evenings.

The odd time May and I were allowed to go over with her, we swam in the pool, had french fries and milk shakes in the clubhouse, or dove for golf balls off the shore. But mostly we experienced the resort from our own dock. At night the music from the dance hall spread itself out over the calm, dark lake. By the time it reached us, it was a stripped-down version of the song, mainly bass, but May and I still sat on the dock with our feet in the water, listening. Thrilled to witness after-hours adult life—even if only an echo of it.

Glancing in the direction of the resort, I expect to see boats along the dock, the navy-blue shirts of staff moving from one building to the next and the bright green of the manicured golf course. Instead I see empty, half-sunken docks, not a person in sight, yellow overgrown grass and dark-brown stains traveling up what were once pristine white buildings.

Slowing the boat down, I stare at the abandoned resort in shock. It’s an unsettling sight. Windset was a point in my compass on this lake. I’m not sure how to orient myself in this landscape without it.

Now that I’m facing the inevitability of time, the ruthlessness of change and evolution, I wonder if it would have been better to stay away, to have held on to the time capsule of my twelve-year-old self and never know what died here.

It’s a little late to be asking myself that question. I can already see Avril Island in the distance. It’s one of the larger islands in the bay. The boat drifts toward it, as though the lake is guiding me there, using its gentle current to get me where I’m supposed to be. I brace myself for what’s to come and push down on the throttle.

Slowing the boat to a stop so that it bobs gently on the waves, I study the island from the middle of the bay. Trees crowd the shore, obscuring what was once a direct view to the cottage. Skinny birches have become round and thick, their branches reaching out over the lake. In between are clusters of cedars, creating a wall of green. It’s as though the vegetation has swallowed the man-made structure out of spite and taken back the island. The wide dock, which extends from the rocky shore and out into the water, is the only evidence, at first glance, that the place was ever inhabited. And even that has begun to look wild, with boards popping up, moss growing in places, one corner sinking lower than the other.

I slide the boat into gear and very slowly make my way across the bay. The closer I get to the dock, the more I lose the boating confidence I regained on the drive over. Docking was always the hardest part. I take my time, reversing twice until I’ve got just the right angle, silently cursing the pull of the water. There was almost always someone on the dock to catch me, to lessen the impact of boat against wood, to correct my mistakes. I flip the bumpers down and hope they’ll compensate for my rusty docking skills.

When I finally make it up against the dock, there’s a slight crunch. I start to panic but then relax. My mother isn’t here to witness the mistake and punish me. Nobody is.

I climb out of the boat and hurriedly tie up the bow before the stern drifts too far from the dock to reach it. Only once both ends are secure do I stop and let it all sink in.

I’m standing on Avril Island. On a dock I thought I’d never see again. I slip my shoes off so that I can feel its rough surface under my bare feet. How many splinters did my mother tweeze out of my feet from this dock? How many times did I pull myself from the cool water and lie on its surface, soaking warmth from its sun-drenched wooden boards?

I listen to the water breaking over the rocky crib beneath me. Return. It’s an action that’s taken for granted. Only appreciated when you lose the place you want to return to most. My anger that the possibility of this return was kept from me is slowly draining away, whitewashed by my gratitude. I’m back, and suddenly that’s all that matters.

I leave my bags in the boat. There’s no point in taking them up to the cottage until I know what I’m dealing with. Slipping my shoes back on to make the trek up, I step from the dock onto land. It’s hard not to feel as though the trees have grown up to protect the place from the rest of the world. Now here I am, about to cross the barrier of new growth—to wake her from a deep sleep.

There’s a hush as soon as I step through the gate of trees. It’s cooler too—the sun has to work hard to break through the thick, leafy canopy. In the absence of people tramping along the path, the ground beneath my feet has become soft and spongy with needles and moss. Each step I take sends up a scent of pine and damp earth.

Right off the dock is a small shed, used to hold paddles, life jackets, and inflatables. Most of the dark-green paint has peeled away, and the small building looks as though it’s ready to buckle under the heavy moss-covered roof. The sight disheartens me. Has the whole place just given up, ready to let the land claim it?

The answer is no. Arriving in the large clearing, where the main cottage sits, I see that she is standing as proudly as she always has. The green paint has peeled in many places to reveal the raw wood underneath, and the white paint on the windows is now a light gray. There’s a slight lean to the front verandah and patches of shingles peel up and away from the roof, but those are comparable to my own signs of aging—inevitable and forgivable.

My chest tightens with nostalgia, and I feel a bit lightheaded. Is it apprehension, excitement, my hangover? It’s hard to tell. It kind of feels like a dream. The dreams I used to have as a child in the months after we closed the place when we were back in the city. I ran up this very path, barefoot, still wet from the lake, to burst into the cottage, leaving drops of lake all over the worn wooden floors.

Those dreams still came, now and again, even after my mother told us she’d sold Avril Island. Less and less frequently as I grew older, but they never disappeared entirely. This place couldn’t be exorcised from my subconscious.

The wide set of verandah steps groans as I climb them, and I have to kick away a layer of brown leaves to find my footing, inadvertently flaking off big chips of white paint at the same time. The rusty hinges of the screen door scream as I pull it open. As I reach into my pocket and pull out the key I was given, my hand shakes slightly. Surprisingly, the key turns easily in the old lock, and the door swings open wide in welcome.

The smell hits me first, before my eyes even have time to adjust to the darkness. It’s like a wallop to my chest, its impact penetrating the bone and tissue, snatching my breath away. The combination of pine, smoky fires, and mustiness acts as an olfactory time capsule, sending me right back to my youth.

I breathe deeply as the room comes into focus. All of the furniture is still there in the very same place we left it. The pine board walls still hold our framed family photos as well as my mother’s amateur attempts at painting the surroundings.

As I walk slowly through the living room, taking in each detail, the floors snap and creak underfoot, settling into place under my weight as I go. I stop in front of the large stone fireplace. Its hearth is the size of two small children end to end, and its mantel is one long piece of red, grainy wood. Thick gray stones with flecks of sparkle are piled on top of each other to make up the solid structure.

It’s the backbone of the cottage, its chimney running right up to the second floor and out onto the roof. Without it, I’m sure, the whole place would crumble. It’s been thirty years since a fire burned in it, but the smoky scent is still strong. I think of all the fires we sat in front of on rainy days and late August nights when temperatures started to drop.

Moving away from the fireplace, I head into the kitchen. It’s silent and still, but there’s an unnerving sense that somebody has only just ducked out of sight. Like a child playing hide-and-seek, holding their breath, waiting to be discovered.

Nothing in the place has been disturbed. The building hasn’t risen up in retaliation for our abandonment and shaken everything about, as I almost believed it would. No animals have invaded the place, turning it into their home once our human scent dissipated. The island has kept everything locked up safe and sound, exactly where it should be, waiting for one of us to make our way back.

I pull open the cutlery drawer and find the pile of mismatched forks, knives, and spoons lying on a bed of mouse droppings. Some of the pieces have become slightly tarnished, but otherwise they’re available for use. The sight of the colorful Fiestaware dishes, still neatly stacked in the upper cabinets, brings back a lifetime of summer meals in one split second.