I am ten years older than my youngest sister. We have an annual tradition of visiting a cabin built by our grandfather in upstate NY. When my sister was a toddler, and I a teenager, she fell down my grandfather's stairs. They are steep, shallow, wooden. There is no carpet. As she sat at the bottom of the steps, her face moving from surprise to stormy, I came to her.
"Anything broken?" I asked, patting her arms, legs, ribs. She shook her head, having not yet decided whether to scream.
"It hurts." I said, "You can cry if you want, but you're okay."
She didn't cry.