Page 71 of My Darling Girls

“I don’t understand,” she whispers, but the words ring hollow. In the stillness of the room, the shadows grow and pass through Jo’s mind like clouds. There’s a whisper inside her head, talking to her, but she doesn’t want to listen. She refuses to understand the words. “Finn.” She says his name because she knows it’s the last time she’ll say it. And she sees it then. In his eyes. In the beating of the vein in his throat. In the clench of his jaw.

She sees the overwhelming guilt.

And she finally knows.

She turns away from him, from Grace and Ira, and faces the kitchen window. For a few frantic moments, she’s not certain what’s happening to her. So she just stands and lets this knowledge, this awful realization, be fully absorbed. The emotion that hits her first is horror. Followed by anger because she was so blind to everything in her life. She looks at her own reflection. The gaunt, pale face of a woman who looks like Ruth and who looks like Josephine. She doesn’t want to be either.

“Jo,” Grace says softly. “We need to leave now. We’re going to miss the train.”

Jo doesn’t move.

“I didn’t know who you were until today. I would never . . . I . . .” Finn’s voice drifts through the space as he chokes on his own words.

Jo slowly turns around.

“Do you want me to explain?” Finn says, his voice shaking, and Jo almost feels bad for him.

“No.” She doesn’t want to talk about August or Finn or what happened to her husband in that alley a year ago. She thought she wanted to understand the horror of August’s death in order to move on, but now she doesn’t have the strength to face it. The wretchedness of it is too much. It exposes the wrongs and doesn’t right them, leaving it all—his death, her betrayal of his memory with Finn—to rot inside her. It makes her soul cower in that shameful, dark place she knows so well.

“I’m sorry.”

She looks at the man who killed her husband and feels nothing. There’s no anger, no pain, just bone-deep exhaustion, as if she’s freed herself of everything that was weighing her down, burying her deep in the ground. She’s pushed herself to the surface. She survived. She didn’t succumb to madness, even though there were moments when she craved it.

“We’re leaving, Grace. I don’t need anything from this place, after all.” This, Jo understands, is her chance at something new, something that’s truly hers—not stolen, not borrowed, not inherited. “Come, Grace. Let’s go and make a new life.”

Untethered

A soft touch to her shoulder. A gentle whisper of a breeze.

Jo opens her eyes, and, for a moment, she doesn’t know where she is. She is out of place. Lost in time. Opium fumes cling to the edges of her mind, even to the corners of her vision.

She must be in the other realm, but it’s someone else’s courtyard. The sky is the same perfect shade of blue, and the breeze softly brushes her hair, and the crows call out to her from somewhere far away, but the place is different. There are flowers everywhere—lavender, purple, green. Wild bergamot. Everything is so vibrant and colorful, Jo’s breath hitches.

What is this place?

It’s been far too long since her last opium drink, but there were more important things that needed Jo’s undivided attention: fleeing the city, a long train ride to Omaha, the vast expanse of the prairies, a house that carries otherworldly whispers in its walls, Grace making new friends with the girls in the house almost instantaneously, and Jo trying to find her footing in a new place. She hasn’t taken opium in a week, and it hasn’t been easy. With some help, she powered through the worst of her withdrawals—the stomach cramps, the never-ending nausea and debilitating dizziness. And one night, when the pain in her joints was unbearable, she promised herself and, most importantly, she promised Grace she would stop using opium. She’d learn how to sleep without the help of the drug. And she’s going to keep that promise.

But first, she must see Millie one last time.

The courtyard is lined with trees. The green is ridiculously vivid. Jo approaches the well and gazes over its edge. Nothing but dry leaves. She knows this place, but she can’t explain how. Jo inches closer to the flowers, leans over, and inhales the aroma. How could she forget? Wild bergamot was August’s favorite flower.

“Jo.”

She whips around, and there he is, at the end of one of the alleys. August. Her dead husband.

“I thought you’d never come,” he says.

They regard each other across the courtyard, and Jo finally smiles and steps forward. “I didn’t know I could.”

August moves lithely, like only he can, and his familiar scent—the scent of him being alive and well and not dead and rotting—assaults her senses. He smells of bergamot and rain. His features come into focus with every step he takes, like a photograph being developed in the darkroom. All his imperfections—the small scar in the corner of his mouth, lines around his eyes when he smiles, and his sharp jaw—everything that makes him August is so painfully familiar.

“I miss you. It’s been far too long.” His voice is raw with emotion.

She draws a breath, yielding to him. He’s solid and firm. Real. “August,” she whispers, touching the side of his face, and her hands slowly slide to his neck. “There’s so much I need to tell you.”

“I know.”

“You know?”