Page 34 of My Darling Girls

Jo’s throat is tight, so she just nods.

Mei crinkles her nose, and a line, faint as a thread, appears between her two perfect brows. “Mama wants my forgiveness. And I cannot give it to her. Not yet.” She takes another shirt, spreads it on the counter, and pauses. “You need to resolve your unfinished business. If you don’t, you’ll continue to go there until you go mad.”

Jo almost laughs at Mei’s words. She’s already mad, isn’t she? A memory of the face bubbles up—the contours blurred by glass, dulled by time, seen across the street as though in a nightmare.

“Do you hear me?” Mei’s soft voice pulls Jo back.

“I do,” Jo replies, her voice raspy, as if her throat is full of sand.

“Penance has everything to do with forgiveness. The dead girl needs to know her killer so that she can forgive them and move on. And you, Jo,” Mei says slowly and looks up from the shirt, her eyes dark and haunted. She regards her steadily, as if she can see Jo’s most shameful, most agonizing secrets. “You need to find forgiveness too.” The words slam like a fist into Jo’s stomach. She tries to muster something else to say, something else to ask, but she has no strength. The courtyard has found its way inside the steam laundry, its presence spreading in the room like a bruise.

Mei turns to the pile of shirts in front of her. The conversation is over. There is no more to be shared.

The hinges scream as Jo pulls the door open and stumbles into the streets with a pounding headache.

We Begin in the Dark

Gray light seeps through the window of Jo’s studio, casting uneven patches across the floor and the settee where Grace is perched on the edge. The girl’s arms are wrapped around her middle. She looks stiff, her eyes jumping around the space as if she’s expecting someone else to burst into the studio. Her hair is parted in the middle and pulled up, the blond strands pinned into an elaborate coiffure. Grace came prepared for a photo session. But her skin is paler than it was yesterday. There are deep, inky shadows beneath her eyes.

“Lean a bit more to the back,” Jo says. She could apply a bit of powder to cover those unsettling burrows under the girl’s eyes.

Grace scoots farther into the sofa.

This whole arrangement isn’t working. It all feels terribly wrong.

Jo takes a step back and assesses the composition, something she’s always been good at. August told her it was her special talent. In the beginning, she used to point out to August when his sitters should wear darker clothes to contrast with the walls in the studio. She was good at finding the right angle and the right position. Later, when she started making her own photos of women and children, she would ask her sitters for specific clothes—less heavy and more flowing dresses, bigger hats, pointier shoes—and was so smug when her portraits turned out better than August’s. He loved her smugness. It made him laugh.

Today, she isn’t sure what to do with Grace. The girl’s dress is perfect, with its formfitting light-brown silk and white lace. But the way she’s holding herself. The rigid line of her shoulders.

“Would you like some tea,” Jo offers. Perhaps a strong tea will make the girl feel a bit more comfortable. Even though she isn’t sure that anything can make her feel relaxed. Whatever is happening inside Grace’s head has nothing to do with Jo or her studio. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have come.

Grace nods and swallows so hard, her throat visibly moves up and down. “Tea would be nice, I guess.” With a short sigh, she looks at Jo like she’s been offered a solution, something that will help her repair her nerves. “I like it strong.”

“There’s no need to be nervous. And a strong tea is my specialty.” Jo smiles, but for some reason, she feels like a charlatan.

She goes to the kitchen, leaving Grace alone in the studio. Jo has worked with women before but never with someone so tense. So stiff in front of the camera. She must find out what it is. It must be connected to Millie or whoever’s hurting Grace. Jo puts her kettle on the stove and sets two cups of tea on the table. Maybe she can fix some food for Grace. Somehow, Grace looks skinnier today than she looked yesterday. She probably doesn’t have any appetite, but a little bit of toast never harmed anyone. Jo opens the cupboards and finds them bare, so she abandons the thought of toast. Instead, she pours some whiskey into her cup.

When the tea is ready, Jo takes two steaming cups into the studio, where she finds Grace studying portraits of women and children on the wall.

“You do it so well,” Grace says as Jo pushes a small round table to the side of the settee and places two teacups on it. “I wish I could do it too.” She sits down on the sofa. “I was thinking about it. It’s nice to make some money, but it would be even better to learn something useful. Something that I can do on my own.”

Jo settles on the other side of the sofa, hands in her lap. She turns to the girl. “I can teach you photography, if that’s what you mean. We can do both, actually—take your pictures for a catalog and also show you how to take and develop pictures.”

“These photos, they’re yours, right?” Grace points to the portraits. “They are beautiful and quiet. Peaceful.” She carefully lifts the cup to her lips, inhales the steam, and sets it back on the table. “I want to learn how to make bold photographs. I want to photograph the souls of the dead. Like you did with Millie. You definitely captured her soul.” She regards Jo for a few seconds. “Mother was very pleased with the photos. Said Millie looked almost alive in them. Not dead, just asleep. Will you teach me photography?”

Jo studies the portraits on the wall. Grace is right. Those photos are well done but boring. She can do so much better than that. “You have a good eye.” The longing for something bigger and bolder, the sharpness of such realization, scrapes down Jo’s skin like a chip of ice. You’re so much more than the miller’s daughter. Those words got quieter over the years. How could she allow this to happen? How could she forget?

“Jo, are you crying? I didn’t mean to offend you.”

Jo touches her cheek and realizes it’s wet with tears. She doesn’t remember the last time she cried. She thought she’d left all her tears in Millville. “I wasted so much time trying to keep my customers happy, I forgot what keeps me happy. I guess I’m just sad.” She wipes her tears, takes two big gulps of tea. The liquid burns her tongue, her throat. The whiskey is a nice touch. It settles comfortably in her stomach, and the tears stop.

“I’m sad all the time. I cry a lot, especially at night when I’m alone. And that’s when I wonder how I can bear so much pain. I feel Millie’s presence everywhere. In my bedroom. In our little garden. Sometimes I see her in the streets. Walking, smiling, and I rush down the street to stop her, to see her. Just one more time. But it’s never her.” Grace shakes her head as if chasing the ghost of her sister away from her mind. “That one. I want to make something like this photo.” She points at a photo that hangs separately, away from the family portraits. “Who are these children? Are they . . . dead?”

“Yes, they’re dead,” Jo says. “A few months ago, their mother came to my studio, looking for my husband. She didn’t know he had died. Her children succumbed to influenza.” She remembers the woman, hollow eyed, pale lips whispering prayers to the same god that took her children away from her.

Grace picks up her tea, takes a small sip. “You captured something otherworldly in their faces. They look alive, and yet they’re dead. How do you do that? You did the same with Millie.”

“I’m not really sure how I do it. It comes to me when I start working.” When the dead whisper to me. But she isn’t going to tell Grace that.