“Emma, look at Mommy.”

Her little fingers didn’t move.

A round, dark red bump was already rising along her left temple, just under her fine brown hair.

On the floor beside her head, a yellow plastic fork lay snapped in two in the sticky syrup.

My mother came out of the breakfast nook, smoothing the front of her gray slacks.

She adjusted her heavy silver bangle with a sharp click of her thumb against the metal.

“She just caught the table leg on the way down, Rachel,” my mother said, her voice crisp and commanding as she picked up a fallen cloth napkin.