Gemotions

Liam stared at the pictures, the images swimming before his eyes. His grandmother, always the picture of prim propriety, was grinning widely, a cigarette dangling from her lip, surrounded by a group of men in sharp suits. This wasn't the woman who had knitted him sweaters and scolded him for staying out past curfew. This woman looked... different.

He sat on the floor, the glossy paper cool against his cheek. His stomach churned. The story he'd been told, the quiet life, the early widowhood, suddenly seemed like a carefully constructed fiction. He felt a sudden, inexplicable urge to scrub the family history clean, to re-write all he had known. He felt a need to understand the lies. “This can’t be…” He could barely get the words out.