Gemotions

The attic air tasted of dust and forgotten things. Amelia coughed, waving away a sunbeam that sliced through a crack in the boarded-up window. She’d been up here for hours, sifting through the detritus of her deceased mother’s life. Her brother, bless his heart, had wanted to sell the house immediately, but Amelia had dug her heels in. This wasn't something she could rush.

A yellowed envelope, tied with a faded ribbon, caught her eye. Inside, a handwritten letter. *To Whom It May Concern,* it began, her mother's elegant script unmistakable. Amelia squinted, her jaw tightening. A resignation letter. From her mother’s high-powered legal career, a career she'd walked away from when Amelia was barely five years old. What nonsense was this?

Amelia sat on a dusty trunk, refusing to move until she'd devoured every sentence. Her throat felt tight. The letter spoke of an untenable work environment, of pressures and demands. Amelia remembered her mother only as perpetually cheerful, a woman who always baked cookies and listened to her childhood woes. It was a ludicrous notion that her mother would ever feel unhappy.