When Nadia moved to Michigan, she assumed that beaches were strictly a summer arrangement. Her roommate Ellie disagreed.
Nadia arrives with the kind of coat meant for walking between buildings, not standing near a Great Lake in February. Ellie takes one look and opens the trunk. There is an extra hat, an extra scarf and a set of hand warmers that seem to live there permanently. Ellie says that preparation is a Michigan love language. Nadia says this sounds suspiciously like a slogan printed on a mug. Their friends Luis and Priya have brought snacks and two cameras, one digital and one old enough to require film. Luis is wearing his Winter Department tee over a thermal, as a matter of principle. On the drive west, fields flatten into long white rectangles, houses become farther apart, and the radio plays songs everybody knows only half the words to. They stop for coffee at Lemonjello's Coffee in Holland before heading out to Holland State Park. The path opens between dunes, and suddenly the lake fills the view. Nadia has seen it in August, green-blue and crowded with families. In winter it looks like another geography entirely.
The first thing Nadia notices is how much color remains when the lake appears almost monochrome. The water is a deep gray-blue. A band of pink opens near the horizon. Dry dune grasses show through snow in the palest gold. Every one of Ellie's photographs seems to contain a red scarf or a red glove somebody has forgotten to tuck away. Luis teases her about styling the world for an imaginary magazine. Priya has wandered ahead along the designated path, fascinated by the way the wind patterns the drifts. The four friends fall into a familiar arrangement: two talking, one photographing, one looking around in silence. It's a comfort to Nadia that nobody expects entertainment to happen every minute. Back in the city she is usually rushing from one appointment to the next. Here the ordinary act of looking becomes the entire point of being somewhere.
They walk well back from any unstable ice along the shoreline, choosing firm sand and the snow-covered path where it is safe. Luis keeps trying to take a group photograph while the wind rearranges everybody's expressions. Priya uses the film camera because she likes the idea of not knowing whether the image came out. Ellie tells Nadia that she used to come here with her father, who would point toward the horizon and call the lake 'the inland ocean.' Nadia asks why she never mentioned him before. Ellie shrugs, and they keep walking. The answer comes later, as simple as the silence between them: he died two years ago, and she still comes because the place doesn't ask her to explain why she misses him. Nadia doesn't offer a neat sentence about grief. She just slows down so Ellie doesn't have to hurry. The wind has made all four of them pink-cheeked and hungry. Luis lobbies for dinner at New Holland Brewing on the way out; Priya points out that the sandwiches already exist. Back in the car they pass around slightly crushed sandwiches, and Ellie hands Nadia the warmers without being asked. On Monday Nadia sends the best of the photos to their group chat, labeling the album 'Beach Season: Part Two.'
Setting artwork is illustrative; it does not depict the story’s cast or document an event.