Gemotions

The attic air tasted of dust and forgotten things. Clara yanked the cardboard box from the shadows, nearly losing her balance. Inside, nestled amongst moth-eaten shawls and chipped porcelain dolls, was a bundle of letters. She’d known they were there; she just hadn’t wanted to confront them.

She pulled out the one addressed in her childish scrawl to her own mother. Its folded edges and stained paper seemed to mock her. *To Mum*, it began, and the memory of the rage that had fueled its creation flooded back. It had been after her tenth birthday, a party planned and cancelled on a whim by her mother, because of a golf tournament.

She slammed the letter down on a nearby trunk, the wood rattling in protest. The gall of it! How could she have been so thoughtless? So focused on her own hobbies? It wasn't about her! Her fingers clenched, the nails digging into her palms.