Gemotions

He hadn't been able to cry since the funeral. Now, reading his mother's list, his throat felt tight, and a strange pressure built behind his eyes. “Learn to speak Italian.” Mark sat heavily in a chair, the wooden frame creaking beneath his weight. This revelation was an attack on all his assumptions about his life. She’d hidden so much.

He found himself laughing, a brittle, shaky sound. "Go skydiving." Skydiving? His mother, who was terrified of heights, wanted to jump out of a plane? He closed his eyes, the image of her face, usually so composed, now replaying in his head like a broken record.