Gemotions

Michael clutched the yellowed envelope, the paper crackling like dry leaves. He'd found it tucked away in a box of his deceased father's belongings. It was a letter, unfinished, to his own brother, a brother he hadn't spoken to in over a decade. He sank onto the worn sofa, the scent of pipe tobacco still clinging to the fabric.

He saw the carefully chosen words, now frozen in time, and the abrupt ending. He could feel the frustration bubbling up in his father’s last lines. He understood the reluctance his father must have felt to finish it. He had felt it too, at times, with his own family. A wave of regret washed over him, a coldness spreading from his stomach to his hands. He wished, desperately, that he could go back, that he could mend what his father had started.