Lake Superior
My dad is parking the car in our driveway and he tells me, "I've met this girl and she's a huge Tragically Hip fan". Without missing a beat, I tell him, "that doesn't make her special, you know". And he knows that I am right and he deflates the conversation with his silence. But I remember how my dad is always the one who says "I love you" first, how he told his second ex-wife on their second date that he was going to marry her. She thought he was crazy but she didn't know that he was just forming a constellation that she would one day long to camp under. My dad is always the one who says "I love you" first. I heard it when he kissed my mother's pregnant belly and I remembered it when I was born like a song heard in the womb. My dad is throwing a baseball at me and in the satisfying sound of the baseball falling in the center of my glove I hear it again. I throw the baseball back and it narrowly misses his head, thwacking agai