The Wave: Prompt
Waves at Play
“Quick! Grab her!” Mom’s frantic shout barely registered through the crash and sloosh of the waves. They moved with her breath, filling her with joy.
Betsy felt her tiny form scooped up and deposited a ‘safe distance’ up the beach before she realized what was happening. Crushed to her father’s chest, she felt the frenzied pounding of his heart. What just happened?
One minute she was listening to the laughter in the waves as they invited her to play. Then, this. Clutched in her father’s arms, she felt his fear enfold her.
Betsy’s little eighteen-month-old legs had taken her too close to the water. Or so she felt, as Mom’s shout sliced through the soothing symphony of lapping surf and circling gulls. The cry startled Betsy and, apparently, frightened Dad into rescuing her from…what exactly?
“She almost got wet! Those are new shoes! You said you’d watch her! What were you thinking?” the words flowed past Betsy as she stared over her father’s shoulder into the light sparkling on the water. Somehow Betsy knew her father’s heart couldn’t be beating that fast about shoes. The new, white lace-up booties, her grandmother called baby shoes. Did shoes have babies? Betsy started to giggle. Her mother was not pleased.
