Gemotions

Clara felt her heart thudding against her ribs, a frantic drumbeat against the silence of the sun-drenched library. She clutched the faded photographs tighter. Each image a knife twisting in her gut. Her grandmother, the sweet, pious woman who had taught her to knit and bake, was captured in these photos in a series of clandestine meetings with a man who was not her grandfather.

The world seemed to spin. The carefully constructed narrative of her family, the one she’d clung to for so long, felt like a house of cards about to collapse. She had to find some semblance of order, some way to make sense of this new reality. She ran a hand through her hair, tangling the strands.

A sharp, almost animalistic, urge to escape prickled at her skin. The need to flee, to be anywhere but here, to avoid the implications of the images, was overwhelming. The walls of the library seemed to press in, suffocating her.