Brad wore thin gloves even in summer, though our children traced every tattoo on his hands at home. He said he regretted the ink, but never saved to remove it. Then our daughter fell into a muddy puddle, Brad gave her his shirt, and a stranger dropped her carton when she saw his bare arm in a store.
“Why is this petal so fat?”
Brad glanced down at Molly’s finger tracing the crooked sunflower on his forearm.
“Artistic decision, sweetheart.”
“Whose?”
He pulled his sleeve down.
“Ancient history.”
A stranger dropped her carton when she saw his bare arm in a store.
His answer was playful.
The way he covered the tattoo wasn’t.
Ten minutes later, we were leaving for the park. Brad wore jeans, a long-sleeved button-down, and lightweight gloves because some of his ink extended onto his hands.
It wasn’t cold enough for any of them.
That was Brad.
Some of his ink extended onto his hands.
***
At home, our three children knew every skull, flower, crooked line, and strange shape covering their father.
Outside, nobody saw them.
“But I like your pictures,” Molly complained.
Brad opened the front door.
“You have questionable taste.”
Outside, nobody saw them.
I’d asked him about the tattoos years earlier.
“I got them young,” he said. “I regret them.”
When I’d suggested removal, he claimed there was never enough money.
The explanation never quite fit, but Brad was a gentle husband and a wonderful father. I believed respecting him meant accepting the door he’d closed.
“I got them young… I regret them.”
***
That afternoon, Molly fell into a puddle and kicked it wide open.
What happened next changed everything… FULL STORY on the next page.
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