Gemotions

The once-familiar scent of her childhood home now felt tainted with a strange, unfamiliar bitterness. Eleanor stared at the family portrait on the wall, her expression mirroring the storm raging inside. The announcement of her half-brother felt like a violation, a betrayal of the carefully constructed facade of her family life.

She moved silently through the house, her bare feet padding on the hardwood floors. Each room held a memory, a ghost of a past that now seemed irrevocably changed. She couldn't bring herself to eat. She wasn't really hungry. She sat in her room.

She picked up a small, wooden heart-shaped box that contained old letters. She read the letters, realizing that her parents were as fallible as everyone else. But she wanted more. She wanted a perfect family, and the knowledge of her half-brother had destroyed that dream.