Gemotions

Rain hammered against the windowpane, mirroring the relentless drumming in Eleanor’s head. She’d been staring at the Ancestry.com results for an hour, the blue bar graph a cruel joke in the dim light of her kitchen. The numbers didn't lie. Ninety-eight percent European, two percent 'unspecified.' It was the 'unspecified' that gnawed at her. She’d always *known* something was off, a subtle dissonance humming beneath the surface of her life. Now she had the proof, a cold, clinical affirmation of the unease she'd carried for thirty-two years. She took a long drag from her cigarette, the smoke a pale ghost in the gloom. The adoption papers, tucked away in a dusty box in the attic, suddenly felt like an impossible climb.