The Unexpected

Have you ever watched something unexpected happen?

My daughter was a cute baby. She was roly-poly and liked singing to herself in baby babble. Her hair stuck straight up and her serious eyes stared directly at or through you.

When cooing strangers in the grocery store came up to my baby? She'd fire them an unblinking, belligerent glare that could curdle milk. Then she'd recoil--withdraw her arm, her head, her whole body from the stranger's looming proximity. She looked like an outraged a...