Gemotions

Sarah’s fingers trembled as she pulled another brittle sheet from the cardboard box. Her mother’s attic was a suffocating space, air thick with dust and the ghosts of forgotten things. The assignment, a crudely drawn map of the solar system, mocked her. She’d been eight. Now, at thirty-two, she was staring at the clumsy lines, the childish handwriting, and felt a cold knot tighten in her chest. She needed to escape, to breathe, to go anywhere but here. She slammed the box lid shut.

The sun, a fiery eye, beat down on her as she walked to the old swing set in the back yard. Her hands, when placed on the chains, were the only cool place. She began to pump, higher and higher, the wind whipping through her hair, the rhythmic squeak a desperate counterpoint to the silence inside. Each ascent was a futile attempt to leave behind the suffocating weight of her mother’s boundless memories.