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.