Page 36 of My Darling Girls

“Grace.” Jo takes the girl’s hand in hers. It feels clammy. Limp. As if Jo’s holding a rag doll’s hand. “Death will come for all of us one day. It’s not something we can prepare for. We just all know that it’s coming. I lost someone too. Someone who was very dear to me. I’m still grieving her.”

“Her?”

“She was a teacher in my town. Young, beautiful, brave, and bold. She changed my world. She changed me.” Jo smiles weakly. “She was fearless, never afraid to say what she truly thought. And it’s a dangerous thing, you know, especially for a woman. To speak her mind. To break the rules. To live life fully.”

As Grace listens, her blue eyes shine a shade of dark gray. “What happened to her?”

Jo’s father’s rancid voice whispers the words she tried to forget a long time ago. The devil created her. She’s full of impure thoughts. She’s full of sin. She remembers the pain from his fingers as he closed them around her wrists, pinning her hands against the tree. She remembers it all, her memories sharp and raw as if it happened yesterday.

“I lost her because I couldn’t save her,” Jo says, and her voice cracks. She cannot talk about it. Some ghastly secrets should never resurface.

Grace senses it, too, because she nods and says, “Millie was also brave and bold.” Grace pulls her hand away, leans back into the settee, watching Jo. “Why is this world so cruel to women?”

“It’s fear, my darling girl. Fear of losing control. Men are terrified of losing their power over us.”

They sit in silence for a while. Finally, Grace stirs.

“I don’t want to be a model. Teach me photography, Jo. I want to be like you. Fearless.”

Jo studies Grace and wonders if she indeed feels fearless. Perhaps. But mostly, she feels entangled in the life of the sisters, inadvertently becoming a part of their world, of their pain. And she definitely feels determined to keep Grace safe. Alive. “All right,” Jo says, searching Grace’s face for some insight into her thoughts, some sense of what the girl sees in Jo herself. “But you need to be patient. You cannot learn it overnight. It’ll take a long time and a lot of practice.”

“I can be patient. I take care of my brothers and sisters.” She chuckles. “I know how to be patient.”

“We’re going to start our first lesson in the darkroom. Come with me.” Jo leads Grace down the hallway. She holds the door open for the girl. “Go in. This is the place where photographs come to life.”

Grace steps across the threshold, and her eyes widen at the numerous trays set on the working table by the wall. She looks around, her mouth slightly open. Everything must look so peculiar to her. “Why do you call it the darkroom?”

Jo laughs. “When I work here, the room must be light tight. I use an oil lamp. Right there, in a sheltered box. It’s covered enough not to spoil my work.” She points in the corner by the table. “And it provides a steady light. So that I can see what I’m doing. After all, we work with chemicals. Some of them are dangerous.”

Grace walks up to the table and inspects large, hard-rubber developing trays. “So many trays.”

“Some are for developing. Some are for toning. Be careful not to touch the containers. Especially this one.” She points at one holding silver nitrate. “If not handled carefully, it can be deadly to us. So let’s try not to die.”

“What is it?”

“It’s called silver nitrate. A developing agent. It’s not as sensitive to light as other chemicals. But it’s highly toxic.”

Grace steps away from the table. “Should we wear gloves or something?”

Jo chuckles. “I’ll teach you how you can make bold pictures, capture souls, and survive silver nitrate, Grace.” She rolls up her sleeves. “Ready?”

“I think so.”

“Good. We always begin in the dark.”

The Awakening

As days pass, Grace learns more and more about the art of photography.

The girl has a knack for mixing chemicals just the right way—not too much and not too little—and her developing and toning processes achieve the perfect result. Her photographs come to life with the right shadowing and sharp, distinct lines, and Jo finds herself in awe of how precise the images are. On occasion, Jo serves as a sitter for Grace. Most of the sepia photographs capture Jo either sitting or standing, sometimes leaning on a wall, her head turned, a small smile on her lips. In Grace’s pictures, Jo sees glimpses of her old self—girlish, alive, and hopeful—and she wonders if there will ever be a time when she feels like that again.

At night, Jo wanders through the house to distract herself from thinking about opium. She takes her time to walk through the studio and the hallways, absorbing all the familiar details of her house. The cracked walls painted white in the kitchen and in need of repair. Her shawl draped over the chair that she bought when August’s insurance money came in. She allowed herself to splurge on that chair. It is a dark-plum color and made of mahogany wood and soft velvet. She barely uses it. She evaluates the empty cupboards in the kitchen and heavy oak wardrobe in her bedroom, full of worn dresses and threadbare linens. The heavy curtains in the studio need cleaning. The framed portraits on the walls, some families with easy, happy smiles, others—not so much. The photos laying bare what hides behind the tense postures and tired eyes. Pictures of children with their mothers. Pictures of siblings with serious round faces and dressed in their Sunday best. Those are the most difficult photos to take, as children always fidget when asked to sit or stand still.

She walks at night to embrace the space that is fully hers.

Jo tries not to take opium anymore to make sure she’s clearheaded for Grace. For Millie. Maybe even for herself. As days blur and roll one into another, her abstinence from the drug takes its toll. She wakes up in the mornings feeling unsteady. Restless. She drinks whiskey to dull the invisible needles, to slow the cravings that are getting stronger with each day. She tries not to think about the vial she has tucked under her pillow. The thought of it is a burden that feels particularly heavy when her skin is hot and tight—and it’s getting hotter and tighter as time goes by—and relentless needles stab at her joints. She ignores it all as long as she can, but when the stomach cramps start and bouts of nausea bind her to bed, she allows herself two drops of laudanum. The relief almost immediately reaches out to Jo, but she doesn’t fall asleep, her mind lingering between two worlds, never breaching the other realm fully. In the morning, she feels better. The ache in her joints lingers, but the debilitating nausea is gone.

They are washing camera lenses that morning, and Jo sees more fresh bruises on Grace’s pale skin. The day is gray, and the clouds are thick and low. The expectation of the storm hangs ominously in the air. And it’s that odd gloom outside that pushes Jo to talk.