Kathryn Dahne - Curse of the Nun

They made short work of the large pizza, ravenous after the day of packing and loading boxes. Anna held Claire close against her, running her fingers through the lighter hair that was nothing like hers. In many ways, she was thankful that Claire seemed to be nothing like her; Anna wanted so much better for her daughter than what her own life had been.

“Packing all done?” Anna asked Mike as he finished off the last slice.

“Think so,” Mike replied, surveying the already loaded boxes with a satisfied look. “All except for what we’ll be using tonight.”

“Thank God,” Anna decreed fervently. “I can’t believe your aunt let us stay here this long.”

Mike was a wonderful, charming person and one of the sweetest people Anna had ever met. His aunt on the other hand was, in Anna’s firm opinion, a bitch.

The first time they met, Donna had openly accused her of being a gold digger and using Mike as her “golden ticket out of the slums for her and her daughter.” Mike had been furious and it had strained his relationship with his aunt for a good while.

It’s not like Anna hadn’t understood where Donna was coming from. Anna had never made much of a secret of her past, and it certainly wasn’t pretty. Messed up childhood; bounced from foster home to foster home with her sister, and a previous marriage that could only politely be called disastrous. Then, of course, there was the other thing. So yes, Anna could understand Donna’s concerns about her nephew’s choice of wife. The thing that really pissed Anna off was Donna’s refusal to get to know her and let Anna prove that she was more than the sum of her past mistakes.

The second time she had met Donna, the woman had spent an entire dinner party talking to everyone but Anna in the most obvious manner possible. Mike had been angry, but Anna was the one who lost her temper that time. She and Mike had been forced to leave early before it could devolve into more than an embarrassing argument between them.

The last time Anna had seen Donna was when she and Mike had met her to sign the rental agreement. Anna had been quite certain that she had seen less paperwork during the entirety of her divorce from her first husband. Reams of paperwork were stacked on the table and Donna kept making exasperated noises as Anna tried to carefully read each paragraph. During this, Donna made it explicitly clear that she was doing this as a favor to her nephew only, and that she had plenty of other interested renters. Which, all things considered, was fairly mild on the bitchy scale and Anna was largely able to ignore it. She did however take great delight in dragging out her careful read through of the contract to see how severe she could get the tic in Donna’s left eye to become.

The stated slew of other renters, of course, had been a lie.

They had gone to view the house not long after Mike had brought the possibility to her attention. It was a fairly standard looking two-story house. Not as cookie-cutter as some of the neighboring houses, but modest and understated in its design. Beige siding offset by neat white trim around the windows and doors, plain and unremarkable. The outside was well maintained, but there was a forlorn air about the house that could be felt, suggesting that it had been sometime since the inside had been occupied.

The front door was the predominant feature of the house’s exterior. It was a heavy wooden piece that looked far older than the rest of the house. There were two large full-length windows on either side of it, with dark curtains draped across them. It had given Anna the impression of a sad-eyed hound. Mike had run his hands along the door’s frame, noting where it didn’t seem to fit quite right and muttering about having to reseal it if they moved in. All Anna could think about was getting rid of the window curtains.

Anna had asked around about the property after they left and was told there was a long list of missing persons that seemed to come up attached to it. Mike had confided in her that Donna had gotten the house cheap for that very reason. Anna would admit to a certain amount of disquiet at the revelation, but it was a cheap option and they had never planned to stay for very long. Anna set aside the misgivings, reasoning the house could have whatever questionable history it wanted, that it would never be as terrible as some of her foster homes growing up.

Mike’s amused laughter pulled Anna’s thoughts back to the present.

“Donna has three houses. I bet she forgot we were even here,” he said, shaking his head.

Anna rolled her eyes and tickled Claire, who giggled and squirmed. “Three houses, huh? I’m excited to finally have one!”

“I know, and here you thought it would never happen,” Mike teased her, tugging on a still slightly damp lock of dark hair.

Anna smiled softly at him.

“I didn’t,” she agreed. “We’ve come a long way.”

It sometimes still seemed like a dream she might wake up from at any moment.

“Understatement,” Mike said with an amused smile, producing a photograph from somewhere next to him. “Look what I found.”

Anna snatched it from his hands and promptly groaned at the image. It was of her, heavily pregnant with Claire and looking like she had just walked out of a goth nightclub. She was dressed in black baggy pants that seemed to be mostly made up of buckles and pockets, with a black lace-collared shirt made for someone three-times her weight in lieu of a proper maternity outfit. Her arms were adorned with clunky silver jewelry from wrist to elbow. She had at least four piercings in each ear, one in her nose, and two in her left eyebrow. Her past self stared out at the camera with a slightly haunted look that sent a shiver of remembered pain down her spine. Anna flipped the photo over to see the scribbled date of “Jan 2008” on the back.

“Where did you even find this?” Anna demanded, shaking her head at the image of her younger self and trying to push away the associated memories.

Claire had been the only bright spot from that time in her life, but Mike’s amusement at the image was infectious.

“Your sister gave it to me,” he said with a grin.

Anna scowled at the photograph. Of course Tricia would have photos. She made a mental note to call her sister at some point this week and chew her out for saving them. Tricia would find Anna’s revenge to be swift and pointed. Possibly in the form of a glitter-infested scrapbook.

Anna rolled her eyes. “Can we lose it in the move?”

“No,” Mike said, snatching the photo back. “You’d regret it.”

“Maybe you would,” Anna muttered under her breath.

Mike carefully tucked the photo away in a box as if it was something he found precious. Anna still didn’t really understand how someone like Mike, a well-respected oral surgeon, had ever given her a second look. They had met after Anna had gotten out of rehab. Claire had been utterly terrified of seeing the dentist so Anna had coaxed her into going by promising to go first.

Anna hadn’t anticipated exactly what toll her former lifestyle had taken on her mouth. She’d been referred to an emergency oral surgeon almost at once. Mike, as the junior member on staff, had been the only one in the practice with room in his schedule. Several visits of awkward flirting later, Mike had finally asked her out on a date. For Anna, the whole thing seemed like the unlikely plot of some Hollywood rom-com, but she had decided to take the chance. It had arguably been the best decision of her life.

Sometimes though, it still seemed almost too good to be true.

“You’re not gonna make me, like, change my look or anything right? Ditch the nose ring, go blonde?” Anna asked suddenly.

Mike laughed incredulously, then frowned when he realized that Anna had not.