Gemotions

The silence in the kitchen was thick, almost suffocating. My Aunt Carol, a woman who rarely ever asked for anything, was proposing the sale of my grandfather's fishing tackle box. It contained everything I remembered about him.

My throat felt constricted. I stared at my hands. I picked at the corner of the table cloth, suddenly absorbed in the minutiae of the pattern. "But...it’s important," I managed to say, the words catching in my throat.

Carol just looked at me levelly. "Things change," she said simply, her tone dismissive. I could feel my face burning. I wanted to scream.