The Anniversary Photograph
Chapter Two: The Last Time Anna Came Home
This week’s Story Starter teaser is:
They had been together for twenty-five years when…
https://magz70-qytix.wordpress.com/2026/09/16/fandangos-story-starter-11/
Fandango’s Story Starter #264
The Anniversary Photograph
Chapter Two: The Last Time Anna Came Home
“Claire, why did you lock the door?”
Mike watched his wife slip the key into her cardigan pocket.
She didn’t answer.
“Claire?”
“Because the last time Anna came home, somebody died.”
The words hung between them.
Mike stared at her.
“What are you talking about?”
Claire pulled out the chair opposite him and sat down. For twenty-five years, he had known every expression on her face. Or so he had believed.
The woman sitting across from him now was a stranger.
“Anna didn’t disappear,” she said quietly.
Mike felt his stomach tighten.
“Then where is she?”
“I don’t know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
Claire looked towards the kitchen window.
“She came home three months after you met her. She was frightened. She said someone had been following her.”
“Who?”
“She wouldn’t tell me.”
Mike placed the Polaroid on the table.
“And you never thought to mention any of this?”
Claire closed her eyes.
“You were supposed to be part of her past.”
He stared at her.
“What does that mean?”
“She told me about you, Mike. About the café, the necklace, everything. When I met you months later, I recognised you immediately.”
“But you said we’d never met.”
“We hadn’t.”
“You knew who I was!”
“Yes.”
“And you let me believe that photograph was us?”
Claire’s eyes filled with tears.
“I was afraid you’d leave if you knew.”
Mike pushed his chair back.
“Twenty-five years, Claire. Twenty-five bloody years!”
He stood and walked towards the door.
“Give me the key.”
“Mike, please.”
“The key!”
She reached into her pocket.
Before she could take it out, the doorbell rang.
They both froze.
It rang again.
Claire went pale.
“Don’t answer it.”
Mike looked at her.
“Why?”
She shook her head.
“Please.”
He held out his hand.
“Claire. Give me the key.”
For a moment, she seemed about to refuse.
Then she placed it in his palm.
Mike unlocked the kitchen door and walked into the hallway.
The doorbell rang a third time.
He opened the front door.
Nobody was there.
Only a small brown envelope lay on the doorstep.
Mike picked it up.
There was no stamp.
No address.
Just his name.
He carried it back into the kitchen.
Claire was standing beside the table, gripping the back of a chair.
“Who was it?” she whispered.
Mike held up the envelope.
Her face drained of colour.
“Don’t open that.”
He tore it open.
Inside was another Polaroid.
This one showed two identical young women standing outside a house.
One wore a white summer dress.
The other wore a dark coat.
On the back, someone had written a date.
17 October 2001.
Mike looked at Claire.
“Is that you and Anna?”
She nodded.
“Which one is you?”
Claire said nothing.
He turned the photograph over again.
Beneath the date, in the same black handwriting as the first photograph, were six words.
ASK HER WHO IS BURIED THERE.
Mike’s eyes moved slowly back to his wife.
“Claire?”
She was staring at the photograph.
Then, almost inaudibly, she whispered:
“That isn’t possible.”
“What’s not possible?”
Claire looked up.
Her eyes were wide with terror.
“I burned that photograph the night we buried him.”
#FSS
With love, coffee, poetry, and stardust,
— Maggie The Afterlove Voice 💫
My new song is out.
https://ditto.fm/silenced-but-not-broken
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