“Can I see?”
I tensed. Since I began tattooing six years ago, my dad had never asked to see my work. Not once.
Doesn’t matter. You’re a success. You don’t need anything from him. Not one goddamn thing.
“Sure,” I heard myself say, and led him to my area in the back corner.
He stepped inside the low, wooden walls and inspected the art hanging above: prints of my favorite obscure artists, framed sets of client photos, and the Unfinished Series. Kacey had cut out theInkedarticle and framed that, too.
The silence was getting too heavy as I waited for the hammer to fall, for my dad to pass his judgment. I gritted my teeth, determined to not say a word. To not concede ground.
“Okay, I think it’s that one,” he said, pointed at a sample of a name in sharp, glassy font. “And that one.” He swiveled his finger to a boxy, sturdy Old English font. Turning to me, he took off his jacket and set it on the reclining chair, then began rolling up his shirt sleeve.
“Wait. You want a tattoo?” My arms fell to my sides, the shock stealing my strength.
My father nodded. The eyes holding mine were heavy with regret instead of sharp-edged disapproval. “Am I too late?” he asked, his voice fraying at the ends. He cleared his throat. “I mean, it’s late at night…”
“No,” I said, my heart pounding in my throat, softening my own voice. “No, Dad, you’re not too late.”
Another silence fell and we stood within it for a moment, then my dad nodded gruffly and looked away. “Good. So… How does this work?”
I moved into my space with him, flipped on the desk lamp. “Uh, well…” My thoughts were scattered over a wave of nerves, as if this were my first tattoo. “You need to tell me what you want and where you want it.”
My dad sat on the chair and tapped the inside of his right forearm. “Right here seems appropriate. And what I want is names. Yours and Jonah’s.”
I stopped, stared.
“Can you do that? In those styles I pointed out?”
I nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, I can.”
I grabbed my sketchpad and pen. I envisioned our names in the fonts my dad wanted and quickly mocked up the tattoo: Jonah’s name curling over the top of mine, his font more elegant, mine more solid.
“Something like this?” I showed him the sketch.
His downturned lips turned into a smile, and he looked at me in a way I’d never seen him look at me before. “Exactly like that. You’re…incredible.”
Twenty years leaned on me hard. Two decades of waiting to hear something like that from Dad. The weight pressed, stubborn and mistrustful.
“You didn’t come to the grand opening,” I said. I tossed the sketch back on the desk and crossed my arms to conceal my shaking hands.
My father didn’t flinch or shy from my stare. “No, I didn’t. And I regret it. I regret a lot of things. Actions I took. Words I said I can never take back. But even more, I regret the words I never said.”
He glanced around my shop, and then back to me. “I always thought Jonah was the glue that held our family together.”
“He was,” I said.
“Maybe so,” my dad said, shaking his head. “When he passed, we all fell apart. We…stopped. Halted in our tracks, helpless and broken. But not you. You kept going. You took care of your mother when I couldn’t. You said you were going to buy your own place and you did. You went back to school so you’d know what you’re doing. I see it all now, Theo. You take care of yours. You took care of Jonah all the time he was sick. All the way to his last breath, you were there for him.”
“Dad, don’t…”
He held up his hand. “Let me finish, or I never will.” He swallowed hard, but never looked away from me. “You took care of Kacey when she was alone in New Orleans, drinking herself to a slow death. You stepped up when she was pregnant, and you stepped up again when she wasn’t. You love her.”
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak.
He reached out and put his hand on my shoulder, hard but warm. It passed through the wall, melted through layers of armor, sank into my inked skin until I felt my father touch my bones.
“I see you, Theo. I see you. If Jonah was the glue that held us together, you’re the rock we set our backs to. I’m proud of you for that.” His chin quivered, his voice cracked. “I’m so proud you’re my son.”
