Page 18 of My Darling Girls

“I’ll come with you.”

“All right. But understand that once you enter the room, you cannot exit it. Not until I am done. You cannot open the door and let the light in. It’ll ruin the film, the photographs.” She sucks on her lower lip. “Your uncle won’t be pleased.”

He nods.

She leads him down the hallway, pausing by the door. She places her fingers on the doorknob. “Finn.” His name feels nice on her tongue, rolling off her lips easily as if she’s known him for a long time. “You’ll follow my orders when inside. You won’t get in my way, and you’ll limit your movement around the room. Understood?”

A smile twitches at the corners of his lips. “Yes, understood.”

She lets her eyes linger over his mouth. Over his jaw. He shifts his feet, impatient. Maybe uncomfortable. She turns the handle and opens the door. He tenses, readying his body to move, but she shakes her head. “Don’t enter. Take a look first. This used to be a bathroom.” She points at the window covered in several layers of thick yellow post-office paper. “This paper makes the room light tight. You’ll stand in that corner,” she says, pointing to the farthest corner of the room. “This is where I develop pictures.” She nods at the sink in front of the window.

“In the dark?” A hint of wonder in his voice.

“There’s an oil lamp inside that box.” She points at a wooden contraption on the floor. “My husband made the box to shelter the light.” She steps aside, letting Finn take in the view of her workroom.

“How does it work?” he asks, taking a tentative step through the door. “This odd business? Making personal pictures of others?” He inspects her worktable pushed against the wall by the sink on his left, chipped white paint, three aluminum trays and a small wash bath, two iron print tongs and a variety of photographic prints attached to the strings of rope above the table. “How do you develop the photos?”

“I expose light through a negative to silver gelatin printing paper. Then I use chemical developers to reveal the image. You’ll see. Come in, and be prepared to be here for a long while.”

She holds the door for him, and once Finn stands obediently in the corner, she steps into the room and closes the door behind her. Most of the tension lifts from her shoulders as she enters the familiar environment of her darkroom. She shuts the door, lights the lamp inside the box, and walks over to the sink. Immediately, the awareness of Finn’s proximity settles over her. The darkroom is spacious enough to accommodate two, but with Finn, it feels so much smaller. Two of them alone in this room. The silence. His breathing and her nervousness.

“Remember, you cannot open the door,” Jo says with a catch in her voice. She clears her throat. “Don’t let the light in.”

“I got it the first time. You don’t need to repeat yourself.” She senses a smile in his voice.

Jo slowly turns to the left, takes a step to her worktable, and goes to work.

“Can I ask you something?” Finn’s voice floats through the room a few minutes later. “Or am I not supposed to talk too?”

She smiles. “You can talk.”

“Where did you learn photography, how to develop pictures? You mentioned Paris. But is that all there is to it?” He waits for her to say something, and when she doesn’t respond, he adds softly, “You don’t need to talk about it if you don’t want to. You owe me nothing.” Another pause. “Just Millie’s photos.”

“I learned from my husband.” The familiar chill slips into her heart and folds inside it. Finn’s words transport her back to the day when August’s body was found washed up on the riverbank. She cried so much that night. Not because she had just lost August. That was devastating, of course. But also because she felt sorry for herself. For her life and what she had sacrificed to be with him. The life they had. The safety and stability he provided. “He died a year ago.” It’s odd to hear herself say the words, put a mark on the calendar, on her life—a year ago. There are days when it feels as fresh and raw as if it happened yesterday. Some wounds are healed. Some still hurt when pressed down. She refocuses on her work. “I took over his business after his death. Couldn’t give it up.”

“You could’ve sold it. I reckon there’s good money in it. Must be hard to run a business all by yourself.”

“I love this business. I love photography. Why should I give it up? Because I’m a woman?” A year ago, Jo was tempted to sell the studio. But where would that have left her? She had no other home. No family. No other purpose. Where would she go? What would become of her? She’d have to marry again—and it isn’t that easy being a thirty-year-old widow—or find a job at a factory, making three dollars a week.

“I never presumed that only men could run a business.” Finn sighs. “Take a look at the brothels on Dearborn.”

“Are you comparing my photography business to those of whorehouses?”

A chuckle. “I apologize. It was a bad example.”

It wasn’t a wrong example. Not that she’s going to tell him that.

They don’t talk for a while. As Jo works, she wonders what it would be like to give Gertrude Millie’s photos. Gertrude in her black dress and her black shoes, full of agony. Will she hold the photos in her hands, then press them tightly to her heart, as if they might absorb her grief? Will she frame Millie’s pictures and put them on the wall as reminders of a daughter she used to have?

“Were you close with Millie?” The question is out before she has a chance to think twice about it.

“Not very close. We talked. We laughed. But we didn’t spend much time together.”

“What do you think happened to her?” Is she really doing this? Is she starting to investigate? All the terrible thoughts about the courtyard and Millie, all her fears she managed to keep at bay collide with each other and grow into resolve.

“Gertie thinks it was some kind of infection.”

“And what do you think?”