Summer 1988: My grandparents have brought me to the Atlantis, a weathered gray motor lodge on North Carolina’s Crystal Coast that looks like something I have seen on old postcards. Our room on the top floor has a bed and a sleeper sofa, a kitchenette, and a view of the Atlantic. These waters have sustained my family on both sides for generations, but they are still foreign to me, as I moved back to North Carolina from Alabama with my parents and brother not too long
