Gemotions

"Just a little something to take your mind off things," her grandmother had said, pressing the book into Clara's hands. It was a worn copy of *Pride and Prejudice*, its pages smelling of lavender and old paper. Clara, recently dismissed from her job, found herself wandering through the used bookstore, the book clutched tightly in her hand, her knuckles white.

She found a quiet corner and began to read. A folded note, hidden between the pages, fell out. It was a shopping list, a hastily scrawled message from a worried mother to her daughter, reminding her of milk and eggs. Clara’s throat closed up. The mundane normalcy of the note, the feeling of shared struggle she felt from the woman she didn't know, seemed to crack her carefully constructed facade.