Record Breaker

Chapter One

There is a knock at my bedroom door.

“Grace, sweetie wake up,” my uncle says with his stern yet still sweet voice. I sit up in bed and rub the sleep out of my eyes.

“I’m awake,” I reply with a yawn. My door slowly opens and my uncle stands in the doorway.

“I’m about to pack your food and water onto Sail Keys,” he says. Oh yeah. I’m supposed to break my mom’s record for the longest solo sail boat trip tomorrow. My uncle thinks I can do it but I’m not entirely sure I will be able to. I have been sailing ever since I was born with my mom. Who continued to sail all the way until she took her last breath on this planet.

            She died two years ago in a sail boat accident. It was just a normal sailing day for her, just taking her boat around the harbor when some drunken idiot lost control of his speed boat and crashed right into her killing her within seconds.

            “Can you make sure all of my Gatorades make it onto the boat please?” I ask as I push my feet into my slippers.

            “Of course,” he says with a smile on his face. He turns around and walks back down the stairs into the kitchen. I smell eggs and bacon coming from the kitchen and pull on my pink robe. As I walk past my mom’s old room I press my hand on her door.

            “I love you,” I whisper. I bounce down the stairs and into the kitchen. I make myself a plate of bacon, eggs and a glass of orange juice. I eat quietly while I watch my uncle load supplies onto my boat. There is someone else helping him but I can’t tell who it is.

            After I finish my breakfast I put my plate in the sink and walk out to my boat.

            “Hi sweetie, did you get something to eat?” my uncle asks.

            “Yeah thank you for making breakfast,” I say. He slightly shakes his head.

            “Don’t thank me, thank him,” he says as he nods his head in the direction behind me. I turn around and recoil immediately into my uncle when I see who it is.

            It’s my dad.

            He left right after my mom died. He said it was too painful for him to be here with me because I looked so much like my mom. I think it was just an excuse for him to go fool around with young volleyball players.

            “Hello darling,” he says. I shake my head at his words. My mom used to call me darling. That was her thing, he shouldn’t be calling me darling.

            “What the hell are you doing here?” I ask not bothering to hide the disgust in my voice.

            “I came to see you break mom’s record,” he says as if it is obvious. It kind of obvious but with him you would never know. After two years I don’t hear a single from him, not a single merry Christmas, happy thanksgiving, a happy birthday, or anything.

            “You lost the right to call her that the day you left me,” I say. I stare at him challenging him to react so I can have an excuse to tell him how I really feel. He turns to my uncle.

            “Brent you told me that she would be happy to see me,” he says. Just what I wanted.

            “Why in the world would I be happy to see you? You walked right out of my life after my mother died. You left your only daughter behind so you could go screw around with volleyball players half your age. The word happy is nowhere to be found in my vocabulary right now,” I say with pure anger in my voice.