The store owner squinted at the baby. “Yeah, I don’t think this one is—he looks pretty lively. But if you do come across any death portraits, let me know.” He wrinkled one corner of his mouth, thinking over what he had just said. “That sounds so morbid.” He shook his head, rubbing his eyes with the backs of his wrists. “No, it’s okay. I know what you meant.” Photographs were, in fact, so expensive in the nineteenth century that some families could not afford to have them taken in life. In certain cases, people would scrape together enough money for a portrait of a recently deceased family
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