Gemotions

"Just leave it, Liam," his sister had said, "It's all in the past." But he couldn't. Not when curiosity, like a persistent cough, kept returning. He sat on the floor, surrounded by boxes of photographs that his mother had kept hidden away. His mother, who always had a smile for everyone.

He found it, tucked inside a velvet-lined box: a photograph of his mother, younger than he'd ever seen her, cradling a baby. A baby he'd never known about. He felt a wave of… despondency, wash over him. His throat constricted. He’d always felt… incomplete, like something was missing, and now he had a clue.

The baby's father? He didn’t know. The baby’s fate? He didn't know that either. But the sheer weight of what he did not know pressed down on him with a physical force, leaving him feeling subdued.