Adding Ten Years in One Moment by Robin J. Hineline (top 100 novels of all time txt) 📕

opened and she was blinking. She looked like she was trying to wake up. Now I could find out where she was hurt.
“Michelle,” I said trying to sound as normal as possible even though I was on the verge of a breakdown.
“Are you alright?” I asked her relieved yet knowing it was not over if she was hurt. At least now she was awake and could tell me what hurt and what happened.
“Yes,” she answered innocently unaware of how much she had frightened me.
“What are you doing?” I asked. It was incredible to me that nothing had occurred.
Now she started to move, looking around. “I guess I fell asleep.”
“You fell asleep in that position?” I asked not believing that she could be comfortable enough in any way to sleep. “Do you hurt any where?” I asked any way.
“No,” she answered me still clueless as to how scared I was.
“Your arm doesn’t hurt? Your leg is alright?” I asked persisting and still finding it hard to believe that she was just sleeping, very deeply apparently.
Slowly she sat up moving the arm and leg that were so irregularly bent making her look like she had awkwardly fallen off the climbing ladder. “I was tired so I went to sleep,” she told me.
I did not want her to know just how much she had scared me. She got up, I brushed off the grass and dirt that was on the back of her clothes and off she went to find her penguin so they could pick up where they had left off.
As I watched her get the penguin and return to the swing I was trying to figure out how to react. Should I scream from the extreme fright inside me only to find out it was for nothing? Or should I cry with relief that it was nothing, she was fine, and none the wiser about how she had scared me?
I did neither. I just got up and slowly started back up the hill at the side of the house. My body had been so tense, so stiff for long enough from fright and many powerful, stressful emotions that now that it was over and I could relax, I felt stiff, slow, and ten years older.
In those fright filled moments when I feared that my daughter, who was the center of my being, was seriously injured or even dead, I felt I gained ten years in age. It was over, she was fine, my fears were unfounded, and I was very grateful for that.
To this day, now and then, I remind her how she added ten years to my life in a long moment’s time. Of course she does not remember a thing.
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Publication Date: 06-27-2010

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