Gemotions

"She was a saint," her aunt had always insisted about her great-grandmother, a woman who’d "sacrificed everything" for her family. Amelia now stared at the image. The glossy paper held a picture of her great-grandmother, arm in arm with a man Amelia didn’t recognize. A man who looked wealthy and carefree. Her eyes trailed to the expensive champagne flutes in their hands.

Amelia’s stomach lurched. The photo, a snapshot of a life she'd never heard about, re-framed her ancestor in a way that left her feeling nauseous. The sacrifices, the stories – all a carefully constructed fable? She felt a tightening in her chest, a pressure that squeezed the breath from her lungs. She reached for the phone to call her aunt, but then hesitated, her fingers hovering in the air.

The lies, if they were lies, were a burden she was suddenly unsure how to carry.