The photograph was sixty years old now and the paper had yellowed and dulled, which only added to the poignancy. A man in a U.S. Army uniform embracing a little girl. His face profiled, his back to the camera, the little girl’s face fully on view, exposed in a moment of utter love—it was the kind of love D’Arcy wasn’t sure she’d ever witnessed in her life. The kind she wondered, for one quick and painful second, if anyone, besides her mother, would ever express for her.

Her stillness caught Josh’s attention and he came over to her side.

“What’s that doing in here?” he asked.

“You know the picture, don’t you?” she said, looking up at him from where she was crouched on the floor.

“Of course I do. But…”

“This whole box is full of war photos. I’ve seen these ones before too.” D’Arcy indicated the skeletal women. “A photojournalist by the name of Jessica May took this picture of the man embracing the girl. She worked for Vogue during the war. I don’t even know if she’s still alive.” D’Arcy tried to recollect if she’d read anything about Jessica May’s life on the fellowship website when she applied but realized she’d arrogantly thought she knew everything and hadn’t bothered. “I’m sure she never took any more pictures after the war though. She was forgotten, like so many others, besides that one photo of the man and the child. Although it’s the photo that’s endured not the photographer; most people would have no idea who snapped it. Why would these be here?”

“Maybe Jessica May knew my client?” he guessed. “Maybe she gave her all her negatives and prints when she died?”

D’Arcy frowned. “Maybe. But why not tell anyone? Despite May being consigned to the amnesia of history, these prints should be in a museum. Not in here. They’re not just interesting as war records; the photos themselves show true artistry.”

D’Arcy pulled out another photo, this one of a nurse on a mountain, singing, surrounded by soldiers. “See how this one’s been solarized so that the woman appears angelic almost,” she said. “Solarization was such a new technique back then and this one is done perfectly. The angel singing—I believe it was Handel’s Messiah—to the troops on Easter Sunday to give them the courage to keep fighting. It’s propaganda almost, but so well done.”

She stopped suddenly. “Sorry, I’m giving you an art history lecture. It’s just that…” Her voice trailed off.

“It feels a bit unreal,” Josh said, lowering himself down beside her to sift through the crate.

“Exactly. It’s an art historian’s dream to come across something like this and here I am standing in the middle of it, photographs in hand, and I don’t quite know what to make of it.” D’Arcy hesitated, but then her habit of candor made her keep going. “I studied war photography and it was thought these negatives had been lost. All the reproductions have been made from the print held by Vogue, not the negatives.”