ANNE HODGES WHITE

Due west and two hours along a bendy road from the elbow of Cape Lookout lies North Carolina’s tucked-under barrier island, Bogue Bank. The cottage faces south. Here, parents and grandparents grew up and grew old; from here, we cousins grew up and moved on; now our children and grandchildren make their own discoveries. Quint Buchholz “Ausflug” I remember when there were more square miles of beach, dune, sea oat, and water oak than cottages. When the one-lane oyster-shell road

The sea is quiet and, resting from its sun- and wind-stirred energy and rigor of July, it flattens. A fathomless lake. We begin the day...