Arriving at her desk, cloche hat still on and purse in hand, Lily cringed at what she had done.
Or had not done, rather.
On Friday afternoon, a labor reporter had been waiting for his photographs to dry, despite looking miserable from a cold. Lily’s boss, Howard Trimble—an editor in chief who ran the paper with all the rigidity of a commander preparing for battle—had demanded to review the images first thing come Monday. Since the reporter would be away on a story then, Lily volunteered to help. I’ll turn in the photos, she had promised. You go home and rest.
She wasn’t one to make promises lightly, yet in the whirlwind of other tasks, she had forgotten. Now it was Monday morning—a quarter to eight. Fifteen minutes until the chief’s regular arrival.
Lily tossed her handbag aside and hastened across the half-filled newsroom. Mumbled conversations traveled across the desks, each butted up against the next. In a regular changing of the guard, the Examiner’s daytime staff was edging out the remnants of the night crew.
Beside the elevator, she climbed the stairs—a faster route when ascending a single floor—and emerged in the composing room on the fourth level.
“Morning, Miss Palmer.” A young, long-limbed fellow stood to her right with an armful of files. The name of the new hire escaped her.
She responded with a smile, only slowing when he pressed on.
“Supposed to be another sweltering week ahead.”
“Apparently so.”
“You do anything over the weekend?”
She had made the two-hour trek to northern Delaware as usual—to her real home. Not the ladies’ boardinghouse nearby where she resided during the workweek. But the purpose of those trips, like so much else in her life, was not something she could share.
“I’m afraid I’m in a hurry at the moment, but enjoy your day.” With another smile, she proceeded past him to reach the door in the corner. Fortunately unlocked, it led her into the pass-through. The sign on the second door—Do not disturb—was flipped backward, indicating that the darkroom was not in use and safe to enter.
Inside, a thin chain dangled from a light bulb overhead. She gave it a tug, illuminating the small, rectangular space with an eerie red glow. The air smelled of developing solutions that filled an assortment of trays, set among supplies on the counter lining a wall.
More than a dozen photographs hung from a wire that stretched the length of the room. Toward the end, just past shots of women proudly displaying quilts, Lily spotted the three pictures she had come for. Scenes from a steelworkers’ union meeting.
She quickly retrieved an empty folder from the counter and unclipped the trio of photos. She had just finished storing them when a sight pulled her gaze. It was a simple picture of a tree—unless a person looked closer. The old oak stood in a field, alone, almost sad. Its branches reached forward as if longing for something unseen.
She surveyed the next image, of initials carved into a splintered fence.
K.T. + A.\
The last letter was unfinished, leaving strangers to imagine its intended shape. And more than that, its story. She moved on to another picture, then another. A discarded bottle cap pressed into a road. A single flower standing tall in a patch of dry weeds. From the way each photo conveyed a tale, she knew who had captured them.
Since starting as the chief’s secretary the spring before last, Lily had stumbled upon Ellis Reed’s personal photographs on two other occasions. Every image bore an intriguing perspective, a depth of detail that most would have missed.
Although few men in the business were willing to write for the women’s pages, or settle for the pay, Ellis persisted with diligence. Like Lily, he had clearly been relegated to a job that bypassed his true talents. She never made mention of this, of course, as their periodic exchanges rarely surpassed basic cordialness…
The thought fell away as she turned.
Amid the red haze hung a photo of a sign. Two children on a porch were being offered for sale. Like cattle at market.
All at once, a tide of emotion rushed through her, unearthing old sediments she had worked to bury. The fear, the pain, the regrets. Nonetheless, she couldn’t look away. In fact, even as moisture clouded her eyes, she pulled the picture from its clips for a closer view.
A flash of light jolted her.
The door had opened and immediately shut.
“Sorry!” a man called out. “It wasn’t locked, and the sign’s not flipped.”
Lily recalled her mission. “Be right out!”
She collected herself, as best as she possibly could, and started for the door. As she reached for the knob, it occurred to her that Ellis’s photograph remained in her hand.
A dark part of her wanted nothing more than to shred and burn the copy, along with the negative. But an internal voice supplied another idea. She could make something good out of the utterly horrible. She could bring children too easily forgotten to the foreground, a reminder that each of them mattered. A hard-won lesson from her past.
Without another glance, she added the picture to her folder and opened the door.
