EPILOGUE
I flipped open the appointment book, as I did every night after the other artists went home.
The next day’s schedule was almost fully booked.
I already knew this: Vivian gave me hourly updates about how well we were doing.
Still, I had to see it for myself, see it in black ink on white paper, every night before I left.
I’m doing it, Jonah. Building a life. A legacy of my own.
From the front door, the rap of knuckles on glass. By the light of the streetlamp, I could see my father shifting from foot to foot, glancing around the empty parking lot. One hand in his jacket pocket, the other running through his silver hair.
I unlocked the deadbolt and opened the door. “Dad, what’s wrong? Mom okay?”
“Fine, fine,” my dad said rocking back on his heels. “I thought it was time I saw your place.”
I stared. “At eleven o’clock at night?”
“I heard you’re really busy. Didn’t want to interrupt.” He met my eye. “Can I come in?”
“Yeah. Sure.” I moved aside and watched mutely as my father came inside my shop for the first time.
Both hands in his pockets now, he strolled the small entry like a visitor at a museum, taking in the framed tattoo samples.
My eyes narrowed, remembering how my father’s face had always been wide open with joy at Jonah’s exhibitions.
Tonight, he was closed off, his lips drawn down, his eyes hard.
I crossed my arms, braced myself against his expression. I wanted to ask what the hell he was doing here. What he wanted. To see for himself how I’d squandered Jonah’s money? How I’d gotten an advanced degree but chose to use it for a business that polluted bodies with ink?
Fuck that. I wouldn’t say a word. If he had something to say, he could say it, but I was done inviting his disapproval.
“Incredible amount of variety,” he said, turning to me. “You can do all these?”
“Yes.”
He nodded, strolled deeper into the shop, hands clasped behind his back. I followed after, turned the lights back on and watched him take in my place. He went to the nearest station—Edgar’s—and tapped his fingers along the reclining chair’s brown vinyl.
“Looks like a dentist’s chair,” he said. “Does it hurt as much?”
I shrugged. “It can.”
My dad inspected the art Edgar had on the wall of his station and pursed his lips. Edgar did our more hardcore designs for our more hardcore clients: snarling wolves with blood dripping from their fangs, horned demons, skulls, and flames.
“This isn’t your station,” Dad finally said.
“No, I’m over there.” I jerked my head.
“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 the Inked article 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.”
His hand slid around the back of my head and his forehead pressed mine. We didn’t cry. We breathed a shared, shaky breath as twenty years let go of my heart like fists unclenching.
Dad clapped my shoulders and cleared his throat. “Talk is cheap,” he said. “Let’s do this. Get it done before I chicken out, as the kids like to say.”
He waited as I sat in my rolling chair at my desk, transferring mine and Jonah’s names to the stencil paper. He eyed me as I set a needle in the barrel of my tattoo machine.
“It’s going to hurt, isn’t it? I might only get through one name tonight.”
“You can handle it,” I said, grinning and set his elbow on the arm of the chair. “Ready?”
“Ready.”
Just as I readied the needle above his skin, he put his hand on my wrist. “Wait.”
I looked up. “Yeah?”
He smiled, patted my cheek like he hadn’t done since I was a kid. “Do your name first.”
“Jesus, Dad, you’re killing me.” I had to laugh as I sucked in a breath, let it out slowly until my hands were steady.
I bent my head over his arm, holding it gently but firmly.
The rotor buzzed. The needle went to work.
I watched, almost as if from afar as my name appeared on his skin, imbedded there forever in black ink.
Then Jonah’s name appeared under my gloved hands, to the side and above mine. When I finished, I held up a mirror to show him. “See. You’re tougher than you thought.”
He stared at the image of his sons’ names in the fonts he’d chosen.
It was one of the best things I’d ever inked. My brother and I on our father’s skin.
Forever.
My dad stared too long, his face unreadable.
He hates it. He hates that I did that to him, and it’s too fucking late now. Permanent.
I rubbed the back of my neck. “Well?”
“It’s perfect,” Dad said hoarsely. He caught sight of his reflection, and the tears welling in his eyes. He coughed, shot me a stern look. “Stings like a son of a bitch, though.”
I gave him his look right back. “Good.”
His eyes widened. For a moment he stared at me, agape. Then a bellowing laugh burst from him, warm and rich, and it filled my shop and every last empty space in it.