There are screams, and then there are screams. The kind that don't just startle you—they bypass your brain and send you sprinting.
I knew before I reached the bottom of the stairs that this wasn't a bumped knee. But nothing prepared me for the sight of her: blood everywhere, and the tip of her tiny thumb hanging by a thread. It was the toybox—the beautiful, handmade gift my parents had built for her first birthday. In a split second, a heirloom had become a hazard.
I bundled her up and raced to the truck. Looking over at her, I saw the tears streaming down her face, but she was a total trooper. The hospital was a blur of X-rays and sterile hallways until we reached the surgeon. As they pieced her thumb back together, she didn't scream or cry. She was a warrior. She just closed her eyes and let the music from my headphones carry her somewhere else.
In the end, she walked out with her hand in a bandage and a banana popsicle in her mouth and her trauma had faded away with its cold comfort.
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