Gemotions

The antique photo album felt heavy in Evelyn's hands, a lead weight dragging her down. Her mother, always so delicate, always so frail, posed with a cigarette dangling from her crimson lips, a look of cool defiance on her face. A man's arm, not her father's, was wrapped around her waist. Evelyn closed her eyes, the image searing itself onto her retinas. The careful narratives of her childhood, the stories of hardship and perseverance, suddenly felt like flimsy facades. She wanted to scream, to shatter something. The fragile album seemed to mock her.