And Donna hit her like a linebacker.
I didn’t even see her coming. She lunged out of the crowd from the side, and she grabbed the bouquet out of my daughter’s lap, and her hip caught the arm of the wheelchair so hard that the whole chair rocked up onto one wheel.
Mia tipped. She tipped sideways, a small cry catching in her throat, her hands flying out to grab something that wasn’t there.
I got the handles. I don’t know how. I was three feet away and somehow I had my hands on the handles and I hauled the chair back down onto four wheels before my daughter hit the floor. She jolted against the seat. Her curls bounced. And she sat there, breathing hard, staring at the empty space in her lap where the flowers had been one second ago.
And Donna stood in the middle of that dance floor and raised the bouquet over her head with both hands like she’d won an Olympic medal.
