Gemotions

The attic air hung thick with dust and the scent of forgotten things. Clara yanked at the lid of the cedar chest, the hinges protesting with a rusty screech. Her grandmother had always painted a picture of herself as a demure, pious woman, a churchgoer who never raised her voice. But Clara, digging through moth-eaten shawls and yellowed lace, was looking for a chink in that armor. She'd always felt a disconnect, a sense that something wasn't quite right with the pristine narrative.

A photograph, tucked beneath a stack of brittle letters, caught her eye. In it, her grandmother, maybe twenty years old, stood grinning, cigarette dangling from her lips, arm slung around a man who looked suspiciously like a bootlegger from the stories her grandfather used to tell in secret about his college days. Her jaw tightened; she refused to believe it. This had to be some mistake, some cousin she'd never heard about.

Clara slammed the chest closed. She’d bring this up at Sunday dinner. She would. Just to prove her point.