Gemotions

He’d insisted on doing this himself. Ignoring his sister's gentle suggestions that they just throw the whole mess away. Robert, a man of fifty-odd years, was wrestling with the task of sorting through his father's belongings. His father, a man he always felt he could never please. He thought he knew his father, a man of rigid routine and staunch morality. He was wrong, apparently.

A faded photograph revealed his father, in a flamboyant Hawaiian shirt, laughing with a woman who wasn't his mother. The woman was leaning into him, her hand resting warmly on his arm. A feeling burned in Robert’s chest, like a poorly-set fire. He’d never seen his father laugh like that. He quickly shoved the photo back into the dusty box, as if he could unsee what he'd just witnessed. He refused to let it change anything. He would keep going, and pretend it hadn't happened.