Gemotions

He found it wedged between the pages of a battered cookbook, the handwriting a familiar ghost of his younger self. It was a letter to his father, the man who had always favored his older brother. The yellowed paper felt brittle in his hands. A sharp pain flared in his jaw.

The phrases of the letter described a boy yearning for attention. The boy was sick of being in the shadow of the brother he loved and hated. There was a desperate plea for understanding, a raw exposure of vulnerability that now felt sickening. The old man slammed the book shut, the sound echoing in the otherwise silent house.