It all happened so fast there was no way to stop it. One moment he was skipping and singing and the next he was face-down on the rock-strewn pavement, red blood streaming from a gash across his eyebrow. The mother rushed over and simultaneously comforted her child while she tried to make her own assessment of the severity of the situation, examining his eyes for signs of concussion and dabbing around the wound with some borrowed kleenex.
Ten minutes later, the child had fully recovered himself and was begging to stay and play some more. But the mother carried the incident around with her for weeks, the knot in her stomach, the flood of anxiety, the feeling of vulnerability replayed again and again, as though the gash on his eyebrow were a wound in the center of her heart.
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