Gemotions

He’d always heard his father was a war hero. A quiet, stoic man who'd faced down death and emerged, scarred but unbroken. Liam, however, held a photo. It depicted his father, far younger, in a gaudy Hawaiian shirt, laughing hysterically, arm slung around a man in a Nazi uniform. A man with a swastika prominently displayed.

The photograph felt heavy in his trembling hand. He’d found it tucked between the pages of a forgotten album. He found himself unable to breathe. He wanted to throw the photograph across the room, to make it disappear, to deny its existence. But the image remained, a brutal testament to some hidden truth.

Liam ran a hand through his hair, tugging at the strands. The comfortable world he had constructed around his father, the man he knew, suddenly dissolved. He sank into a chair, the floor beneath him feeling unstable. What was real?