Lake Michigan, I first see it from the Convention Center. I take you by the hand, Tip by the leash and we blunder down the road. A street light across traffic, an underpass. Really, only half a mile. Lake Michigan. It's cold. The wind is raw. A park with a trail, the grass still brown from winter. We stand on steps holding the lake back. The waves hit, the white spray leaps up and rains down. Water clear as the tap.

On the phone, my mother laughs. I say it's beautiful. I say there's a lighthouse.

Tony, you take me so many places along Lake Michigan. We stay at a truck stop in Benton Harbor, a mini Petro. We drop the trailer and go to Van Buren State Park. There are a lot of dead fish. Tip rolls in them. He smears dead fish on the white ruff of his neck. The only thing to do is lather with raspberry soap. Oh, Tip hates raspberry soap. The water comes from a pump.

More than once we drive across the bridge between Mackinaw City and St Ignacia. Camp out at that rest area. I pick my way between the rocks to the edge of Lake Huron. I jump in. Annoited.

On the phone, my mother says, yes, she and her sisters used to take one of the Model Ts and drive to Lake Huron. In the summer. No one needed a license. Father taught her how to change a tire and said come back Monday.

Once Tony, you and I drive right through Traverse City.

We had a cottage in Traverse City my mother says. Before Dad built the one Manistee. I remember walking with Mother and Dad. There was pink candy cotton.

Finally, we spend one whole day in Muskeegon. It's a small grocery store, the rest of the people are African American and then there's us. We get directions to the beach that's a dog park. For the whole day, we sit and we swim. Tip chases the waves. He chases the waves until he's weak with the chasing. He lies down a minute but jumps to all fours and dashes off to chase the waves. I say out loud the stories I grew up on.

Muskeegon, where my grandfather grew up. His father, a violin maker, died at a race track and his wife, Clara Birch, opened a boarding house. She had red hair. When she died she had no hair and her wig was sitting on a bed post. This grandfather of mine, the whole town pitched in to ship him off to Military School where he learned to polish his shoes and line them in absolute straightness. My mother chopped wood day after day outside the cottage in Manistee. Where my father came to visit from the University. He said: Barbara is so beautiful. My grandmother answered: Then wait until you see Harriet. My mother

I rub sunscreen on your back. The sun off Lake Michigan will burn you, Tony, even when it's cloudy.