My Sweet Annie

21

I turned the pages of Gran's diary. Here was the first section of the notebook where additional pages had been added. On the left page, Gran had used skinny, papery tape to affix a sketch of a young man to the notebook. I thought the sketch had been done in charcoal. I recognized him immediately as my grandfather, and I smiled as I gazed at the rendering. He was handsome, with horn-rimmed glasses and a neat haircut that suggested the likeness had been captured after his penny-pinching bachelor days. At the bottom right of the sketch was a signature: R. Carter 1959 "BURT."

On the right page was a piece of waxed paper, taped at the top to make a flap. When I lifted it, I found a pencil sketch of a girl. Her hair was in a loosely sketched braid over her shoulder. The drawing was just her face and collar, a rounded, Peter Pan style. She was smiling, gazing off to the left. At the bottom of the page was another signature: R HAAS '50 "ANNA."

I wondered why Gran had covered her with a flap of waxed paper.

Ana drew in a sharp breath and shifted on the couch. Porkie let out a long-suffering sigh that ended in a grumble, and I couldn't help but laugh.

"What?" Ana murmured.

"The dog." I spoke in a whisper. I wasn't sure what time it was, but it seemed late. "You disturbed her slumber. Rude."

"The poor thing hasn't slept in days." Amusement lightened the edges of Ana's words, which were soft with sleep. "You're lucky I haven't called the ASPCA."

"Ha, ha." I sat up, sliding my legs from underneath the afghan we'd been sharing, then closed Gran's notebook and set it aside. Patting Porkie's head, I asked, "Do you need anything while I'm up?"

"Mm mm," she said. She closed her eyes again.

I crept out of the living room. The dining room was shadowed, but I didn't want to turn on the light and blind Anabel. I hesitated, peering through the gloom for any strange shapes or movement.

Get ahold of yourself, Tab.

I hastened to the bathroom and managed to slip inside and flick the lights on without incident, chased by the same stomach-flipping fear I'd felt as a young teen, after we'd moved out from Gran's. We'd lived in this old rental with Mom's husband at the time, and the washer and dryer were in the damp, unfinished basement, illuminated by a single naked bulb hanging from the cobwebbed ceiling. Every time I'd walked down the plank stairs I'd felt like something was going to reach out from beneath them and grab my ankles.

Maybe something will grab your ankle here.

Shut up. Shut up. Shut the—shut it.

I peed, willing my mind not to stray. I washed my hands and checked my face in the mirror, taking a moment to smooth my eyebrows and my couch nap hair.

I left the bathroom even more quickly than I'd gone in, aware that on my way back to the living room, the stairs were behind me: the stairs where I had sensed that presence earlier in the day. But they were good, decent, solid stairs, stairs monsters couldn't reach through to grab ankles, and besides, I wasn't alone and I was thirty two years old and even though I wasn't so sure about ghosts, monsters didn't exist.

Though it had seemed like she might drift back to sleep, Ana was lying awake when I came back into the living room, her face illuminated by the pale blue glow of her phone screen.

"Sorry. Is it really late?" I asked.

"Hmm?" She lowered her phone to rest on her chest. "Just about 11:30. Why?"

"I just realize you're kind of stuck here."

"I'm not dignifying that with a response, you idiot."

"Oh. Wow. We're already at the insults phase of the friendship?"