Word Waves

I ran toward my father, spraying sand in the air, to find him slouched in a plastic folding chair. Bending over him and flicking my salty brown hair across his neck, I examined the bright white page of his open book. I asked him what he was reading. His explanation was complex and poly-syllabic, but that didn’t stop me from smiling and nodding. You want to read some? he asked me. Taking the book into my small, gritty hands, I peered at the page, searching for a period and a capital—an appropriate place to begin. Some of the words were familiar, like the, like, and because, but the rest were long and stretched out like lumpy worms. I tackled each one with an eye on the book and an eye on my father. He smiled, twitched his moustache, and crossed his sun-burned arms across his chest.
I read until I was out of breath from reading the sentences which were much longer than those in my Thoroughbred series. And soon my legs itched with the drying salt water and sand clinging to my fine hairs. That was enough. Smirking, I handed the book back to my dad—told him it was interesting—and ran back to the cool of oceansplash, past my mother who lay on her towel reading the Christian version of Danielle Steele.
In a fleeting moment illuminated by the pulsing sun and waves, I thought to myself, I am my father’s daughter.