Then another photograph appeared.
A woman stood beside Brad, both of them laughing over a crooked moon.
I slowly looked back at his arms.
“How many?”
Brad rubbed the back of his neck.
“Not that many.”
“Brad.”
“Eight, maybe.”
“Nine,” Erin corrected.
“One barely counts.”
“Your skin disagrees.”
Over several years, Brad had become someone the center and its partner studio could call whenever a recovering artist or apprentice completed the required training and needed a willing volunteer for supervised work.
Not everyone continued tattooing.
One person became a graphic designer.
Another taught adaptive drawing.
Someone else decided art should remain a hobby.
Brad remembered every one of them.
“He teaches now,” Brad said, pointing at one photograph.
Erin smiled.
“And complains constantly.”
“That’s how you know he’s happy.”
I stared at my husband’s arms.
For years, I thought those uneven lines and odd little designs were evidence of a reckless youth Brad desperately wanted erased.
