Page 69 of My Darling Girls

Ira leans into her face and whispers, “I’m not going to hit you, stupid cow.” His rotten tobacco breath turns Jo’s stomach. “Go to the kitchen, and let’s have that drink.”

When Jo steps around him, the studio is empty. She hadn’t realized Grace left with Finn. There was no sound of their steps. Not a word. Not a single goodbye.

It’s a relief, in a way, to know they are gone.

Jo slowly walks to the kitchen, where she pours Ira two fingers of whiskey in a rock glass. She sets it on the table, and he drops in the chair on the opposite side, putting the stack of letters on the table. She splashes some whiskey in a glass for herself and drains it in one swallow. Then she pours herself some more. She thinks of Millie and Grace. How both of them stormed into her life and gave her something she hadn’t experienced before—the need to take care of someone besides herself. Maybe the old man was right, after all. Jo did find love. A different type of love, not the one she experienced with Miss Lambert. Not all consuming and fiery and raging, but calm and thoughtful, one that makes her fearless. Love that dulls her loneliness. Softens her grief. And the old man was right when he said her heart would feel fuller. It does. As if the hollowness—that gaping, bleeding wound in her soul that festered deep inside her ever since she left Millville—is healing.

She also thinks about Finn and how he leaves her breathless. How she craves his touch, the heat of his mouth on hers, the heaviness of his body pressed against hers. She wants him in a way she never wanted August. She didn’t think she’d be able to feel this kind of desire ever again. Finn gave her that gift.

Jo turns around and faces Ira.

You, the Darkness

“Gertie was devastated when Millie died. She wanted Sally gone for good—truly hated that girl—and Sally must’ve switched the cups,” Ira says, swirling whiskey in his glass. “In the end, it didn’t matter. Millie was dead and Sally was alive. A horrible, deadly mistake.”

Gertrude must’ve been furious when Sally walked out of her house unharmed. Jo imagines Sally, unsuspecting, rushing down the street, searching for Grace’s face among the walkers. The spaciousness of the streets, the crowded traffic—it must’ve served as a protective shield against Gertrude. Against Ira and Hank. But not against Sally’s own fate. Sally must’ve been desperate to see Grace, and that’s why she accepted Gertrude’s invitation for tea. She must’ve felt terrified stepping inside the house on the invitation from the woman who doomed her to life in a brothel. Her love for Grace was all she had. And she wielded it as a sword.

“Poor Millie,” Jo says softly. What a brutal way to go. Did Millie know she was dying? Was she terrified? Did she get to say her goodbyes to her sisters and brothers?

Suddenly, a memory of Charlie, Grace’s youngest brother, and his mischievous smile as he shuffled cups when Grace made tea for Jo takes shape and emerges slowly, forming an image that cannot be erased. Charlie played the same game with the whiskey glasses the night Jo came to take Millie’s pictures. Jo remembers Gertrude grabbing the boy by his shoulders in anger.

“It wasn’t Sally,” Jo says softly. She holds her breath and adds, “She didn’t switch the cups. And why would she? She didn’t know Gertrude wanted to kill her.” As she speaks, every inch of her skin stiffens around her bones and ligaments. The stain of this murderous family will mar the lives of so many in this city.

Ira drains his drink, the glint of the glass splitting the shadows on his face.

“It was Charles,” Jo says. “I saw him shift whiskey glasses the night I came to take Millie’s pictures. He switched teacups when I visited Grace a few days ago. It’s all a game to him. He likes swapping cups and glasses and plates. Haven’t you ever noticed? Maybe Gertrude turned away for a second. Maybe she stepped out of the room. It doesn’t take long for Charles to switch the cups. He’s quite swift.”

Ira gets to his feet and pours whiskey into his glass. The act seems almost dreamlike and out of place, doing something so normal, so trivial, like measuring whiskey while discussing a murder. “More?” He catches her staring.

Jo nods, and he sets the decanter on the table. She pours herself three fingers.

“Your sister’s dangerous,” Jo says, sipping her drink slowly. “What are you going to do to make sure she doesn’t hurt her other children?”

“Don’t concern yourself with Gertie. As for the girls . . . girls need to be put on a leash. Women”—he pauses, savoring his drink—“are not supposed to have much freedom. Because when you do . . . well, you don’t know what to do with it. You need rules. You need to be tethered. To a man.” He grins. “Look at you, Jo. Or should I call you Ruth?”

Jo breathes in. Out. Her real name makes her want to disappear. She doesn’t want to be the miller’s daughter again. She doesn’t want to remember her father and his fists. The reverend and his rules. Their punishment.

Ira drains his glass and slams it onto the table. Jo startles. His smile widens. “August hasn’t been dead long enough, and what good did your freedom do for you? You became an addict. You wasted the insurance money on drugs. And then, out of boredom, no doubt, you wormed your way into my family and used Grace’s vulnerability, her grief, to fill her head with ideas of becoming a photographer, having her own business. I’m glad I found the letters. At least now she knows who you really are. A liar and a murderer. You should be put on a leash too.”

Put on a leash. Tethered. Choked. The words tighten around Jo’s throat like a noose. A black hole inside her ripples. “I might be a liar and a murderer, but at least I try to right my wrongs. You don’t give a damn. You’re the darkness, the void,” Jo says, one finger brushing over the edge of her glass.

“When you stare long enough into the darkness, you become the darkness.” Ira draws a small gun from his waistcoat pocket. “Enough of that. I’m actually here to talk business.” He doesn’t point the pistol at her. Instead, he just holds it casually in his hand. As if it’s nothing. As if it’s a simple extension of him. The circles around his eyes get darker. “But first I need to ask you about August.”

Jo tries to take a full breath and fails.

With the barrel of the pistol, he scratches at some spot on the table. “Tell me where August was sending the girls.”

“August never told me about the girls or where he was sending them. I didn’t know anything about it until he was gone, and I found the photographs.”

“Such a secretive man he was.”

“He was protecting me.”

Ira sets the gun on the table. “As a loving husband should.”

“What do you want, Ira?”

He doesn’t respond, and the stillness, the heaviness of the air, is pressing against Jo. Her hand trembles when she brings her glass to her lips. The whiskey burns its way down to her stomach, but its burn doesn’t help. Instead, her stomach roils, and bile rises in her throat.