Gemotions

Rain lashed against the attic window, mirroring the storm brewing inside her. Eleanor climbed the creaking stairs, dust motes dancing in the single shaft of sunlight that pierced the gloom. She hadn't been up here in years, not since… well, not since everything had changed. It was time, she supposed, to sort through the remnants of a life.

She stumbled upon a trunk, its brass clasps tarnished with age. Inside, nestled amongst moth-eaten blankets, were stacks of papers tied with faded ribbons. Her name, scrawled in her mother's elegant hand, adorned each bundle. Assignments from kindergarten. Book reports from the fifth grade. High school essays, filled with adolescent angst and unrealized dreams. A hollow ache formed in her chest.

A typed note, clipped to a science project on the solar system, caught her eye. "My brilliant girl," it read, in her mother's familiar script. Tears stung her eyes. Why had she never felt so bright? She closed the trunk, the weight of forgotten memories pressing down.