Gemotions

The attic air tasted of dust and forgotten things. Clara tugged at the string of the single bare bulb, its anemic light barely piercing the gloom. The box of photographs felt heavy in her arms, a burden she wasn’t sure she could bear. She'd been feeling…fragile lately, brittle as dried leaves. A recent argument with her mother, a dropped phone call from her fiancé – each tiny event had felt like a shard of glass.

A black and white photograph surfaced first, depicting her grandmother, a woman whose stern visage always graced the family portrait. Here, though, she was laughing, a broad, unrestrained joy etched on her face, leaning close to a man whose arm was casually draped around her waist. The man wasn't her grandfather. Clara’s breath hitched. A knot tightened in her stomach, a feeling of being wrong-footed, like stepping on air.

Her fingers trembled as she pulled out another picture, and another. Each one showed a life, a story, that seemed a world away from the tales she’d been raised on, from the meticulously constructed narrative of her family’s past.