Gemotions

The old house hummed with the ghosts of generations. Amelia, these days, felt as though the slightest breeze could scatter her. She moved through the house with a sense of guardedness, as if expecting the furniture to jump out and attack. The album, once belonging to her great aunt, a woman she’d always believed was a shy wallflower, lay open on the table.

A photograph showed her great aunt in a flapper dress, laughing hysterically as she danced the Charleston. The backdrop was a dimly lit speakeasy. Amelia stared at the image, her jaw slackening.

The subsequent pictures depicted a life of adventure and rebellion. A motorcycle ride. A daring gaze into the camera. Amelia pressed a hand to her chest, feeling a strange mixture of awe and bewilderment. The story she had known, the story she had carried, seemed fragile, a lie. She thought of her own anxieties, her own careful life.