Gemotions

The attic air hung thick with dust and the ghosts of forgotten summers. Maya dragged another box across the warped floorboards, a splinter finding purchase in her thumb. She barely noticed. Inside, tucked away in brittle file folders, were the relics of her childhood – her mother’s meticulously curated archive of academic mediocrity. A tear sketched a path down her cheek as she examined a drawing of a lopsided house from second grade, her name scrawled at the top in loopy letters. Her mother had kept *everything*.

Her shoulders slumped. She’d snapped at her mother that morning, the words sharper than she'd meant them to be. She'd dismissed her as 'smothering' when she had been offered a cup of tea. Now, seeing this tangible evidence of her mother's love, her anger dissolved like sugar in hot water.

She bit her lip, then began to methodically arrange the papers, a clumsy attempt to regain some semblance of order in the chaos of her memories, a silent apology.