People always ask me why I stayed.

They drive in across the bridge for a long weekend or maybe a week in July, and by day three, they’re already planning their exit. “It’s cute here,” they say, “but I don’t know how y’all live with the sand and the storms and no Costco for forty-five miles.”

Some folks imagine I ended up at Waves End Retreat because of the view, which is spectacular, by the way. Or because I inherited the place. Or because I’m stubborn. All those things are true. But none of them are keeping me here. The truth is, I tried to leave. I really did. But once this island gets into your blood, it’s like sulfur in the waterpipes. There’s no flushing it out. There’s no filter that’ll get out that funk.

The first time I came to the island, I was thirteen. It was the summer of 1986. My parents were “taking a break,” which meant Mom needed time to figure out if she wanted to keep loving someone who loved beer with the boys more than her. Dad was off finding himself in the mountains (with the boys and some beer, no doubt). I got shipped to Grandpa Grover with a duffel bag and a Walkman that only played on one side. I wasn’t happy about it.

Grover and I didn’t know each other. He’d left Grandma Rose just after Mom was born and never had much to do with us. He was the kind of grandparent who sent $5 checks at Christmas with the memo line blank. He didn’t like talking on the phone. He didn’t like company. And he definitely didn’t like the idea of babysitting his granddaughter for an entire summer.

When Mom finally pulled our old Toyota station wagon gremlin into the parking space by Grover’s trailer, she was quiet in that way that made me feel like I’d already been forgotten. Grover stepped out onto his rickety porch in cutoff shorts and a stained tank top, spat sunflower seeds at the ground, and said, “She can’t stay. Not this year. There’s a Nazi in Lot 10. And there’s the other thing.”

He didn’t elaborate, and to this day, I don’t know if he said it to scare me or to warn her, but either way, she left, and I stayed.

And he was right.

There was a Nazi in Lot 10.

And there was another thing.

Fortunately, there was also a girl named Cheryl Bellweather, and she changed the plot entirely.