Gemotions

The attic air tasted of dust and forgotten things. Sunlight sliced through a crack in the boarded-up window, illuminating motes that danced like tiny, manic spirits. Sarah clutched the album, her knuckles white against the worn leather. Her grandmother, a woman famed for her piety, was laughing – truly *laughing* – in the first photograph, her arm linked with a man who wasn't her grandfather. He had a cigarette dangling from his lips and a devil-may-care grin. A wave of nausea rolled over her.

She flipped the page, her heart thudding against her ribs. More photos. Parties. Dancing. Boisterous gatherings filled with people she’d only known through the carefully curated anecdotes of her family. The stories were of quiet evenings, of hymn singing and early bedtimes.

The attic seemed to shrink, the air thickening with the unspoken. Sarah choked back a gasp, the weight of the album suddenly unbearable. She stumbled backwards, needing to escape the suffocating closeness of the past.