Molly lifted her hand.
“I want to see Daddy’s secrets.”
Brad stared at her.
“Wonderful. Betrayed by my own child.”
I looked at him.
“I want to understand.”
He held my gaze for several seconds.
Then he sighed.
“Fine. But Erin tells this story better than I do.”
Erin took us to the adaptive arts center where she worked.
The center partnered with a licensed tattoo studio nearby.
She had first met Brad there many years earlier.
“I was training seriously as a tattoo artist before I got sick,” Erin explained.
She flexed her fingers slowly.
“Afterward, my hand control changed. For a while, drawing a straight line was difficult.”
She spent months in rehabilitation.
She used adaptive grips.
Practiced drawing exercises.
Worked endlessly on synthetic practice skin.
Eventually, an instructor at the partner studio cleared her to attempt one small design on a real person under professional supervision.
