We drive all morning to get to Lake Michigan and as soon as my dad stops the car, I am racing across the beach. I took my shoes off twenty minutes ago so I can leap out barefoot. “It’s scorching!” I holler, using my mother’s delicious word.
She does not feel the sand, however, because she is an adult and stands on the pavement in shoes. I splash into the waves to cool my feet and then walk along the shore, feeling the wet sand squeeze up between my toes. Later, I help my family unload suitcases and boxes of food for two weeks at our rented cottage.
I experience summer with my feet, my bare feet. The gravely sand on the wooden boardwalk. The cold damp sand in the shadows beside the cottage. Every morning it is my job to sweep the floors and I make a big show with the broom. But when I’m done, I can still feel sand under my bare feet. I don’t tell my mother.
“When can we go to the beach?” I ask.
“You go ahead,” she says. “I have to put on my shoes.”
