Gemotions

Sarah ran a finger along the spine of a slim volume, its title faded: "My First Grade Reader." She knelt in the den, her mother's meticulously organized storage boxes spread before her. They’d been sorting through things after her mother's unexpected passing. Everything was there: spelling tests, book reports, even art projects with glitter still clinging to them.

She flipped through a particularly elaborate papier-mâché volcano, a volcanic eruption lovingly rendered in red and orange paint. A tight sensation in her chest. She hadn’t realized her mother had kept everything, a complete record of her childhood. Was there something…more?

The sheer volume of it – the sheer *completeness* – was unsettling. She picked up a box labeled "High School English." Inside, her mediocre poetry – the attempts she had been embarrassed of for decades – lay exposed in their entirety. She felt a flush rising up her neck.