Gemotions

A tremor ran through David's hands as he stared at the pictures. The genealogy website had promised answers, a connection to a long-lost great-aunt. Instead, it delivered betrayal. His grandmother, the woman who’d always spoken of her humble, poverty-stricken upbringing, was depicted in a lavish fur coat, beaming beside a man who looked suspiciously like a notorious bootlegger.

The screen flickered. He smashed his fist against the keyboard, the plastic cracking. He’d spent his life listening to her tales of hardship, of scrappy survival. This... this was a calculated deception, a carefully constructed illusion. He felt a searing heat in his chest, a pressure building until he could hardly breathe. He ripped the headphones from his head and threw them across the room.