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.