Gemotions

He'd been so careful, always. Yet the passbook had tumbled out of his glove compartment. Amy, idly rummaging for a tissue, had seen it. The balance. A vast sum. Her own reflection in the car window stared back, a stranger, a ghost.

Her heart pounded in her chest, a wild, erratic rhythm. She felt a wave of dizziness, and she grabbed onto the door handle to steady herself. The road ahead, the future they had planned, suddenly dissolved into a hazy, uncertain landscape.

She recalled his cautiousness, his insistence on a shared financial openness. Had it all been a performance? A carefully constructed facade? She felt the sting of tears, not of sadness, but something far more unsettling, far more painful.