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"That was rock bottom?" I asked with raised eyebrows. The counselor had told us until Ivy reached rock bottom, she wouldn't be interested in recovering. Her excuses would always blind her to her addictions.
"No, I think I'm at rock bottom now." She gave me a resigned look and patted her belly. Putting the milk away, she stomped into her bedroom and left me standing there feeling shell-shocked.
The fear, the selfish part of me wanted to recoil and push her away, but I couldn’t do that to her or her child. If it was me, I’d have gotten the abortion. I couldn’t give a baby up for adoption and then live with someone I birthed walking around feeling this big hole in her chest. That was a wound that had never fully healed no matter how many times Mom and Dad reminded me that I had been chosen, that they had wanted me for Ivy’s sister and their daughter more than any other girl out there.
What people told you and what you truly believed were often very different things. But what I did believe was that Ivy needed me, and I couldn’t abandon her, no matter how scary and wrong her choice seemed to me.
On my phone, I checked my bank balance. We had a few thousand dollars in savings that I'd hoped to use to buy a car so Ivy and I wouldn't have to share. There was also a bit of money I'd set aside from the sale of the house that Ivy didn't know about. It was the emergency fund. I suppose if there was ever an emergency, this would be it.
But medical bills, another mouth to feed, a better place to live…those would all eat through our savings like Pac Man on steroids. Suddenly the inking job looked incredibly appealing.
"I'm going down to Atra," I called, but there was no response.
* * *
"Tucker here?" I asked Gig when I walked in. Of course he was here. Tucker lived in his tattoo shop.
"He's in the back." Gig jerked his head toward the rear of the shop.
Tucker was in our small break room that contained a card table, four chairs, and a microwave. And boxes. Lots of boxes full of ink, body jewelry, tattoo gun modification pieces, and who
knew what else. There were shelves in boxes too.
"When are you going to put those up?"
He ran a hand through his unruly hair. "I'm a tattoo artist, not a fucking carpenter."
My thoughts flicked to Finn and his capable hands and his sawdust-covered boots. He'd have those shelves up in no time.
"How much would it cost me to apprentice?" I asked, sitting in one of the uncomfortable folding chairs.
He perked up at this. "Usually it costs a couple grand, but I'm willing to teach you for free if you agree to work for me for two years after you're done apprenticing. And this would include exclusivity over your designs so you couldn't take your art and talent somewhere else the minute you learned how to ink."
"Two years? I think indentured servants had to pledge themselves for less time."
"It was seven years for indentured servants, and most died before their servitude was over. We can go seven years if you like."
The worst thing about Tucker was that he had that stupid law degree under his belt. It sucked to argue with him. There was no winning. And he liked to argue. I could see his engines firing up. I, on the other hand, did not like confrontation. As he leaned forward, I scooted back.
"Would I have to pay for supplies? You make Gig pay for his ink and pig skins." Gig was learning to tattoo on pigskin procured from a local butcher, which I thought was tremendously gross, but the alternative was really expensive. Plastic skin cost twenty times as much as a pigskin.
"You'd need to pay for the disposables. Ink, needles, grips, skins. I'll make your gun for you, which you can rent. When you're done apprenticing, you'll need to buy your own gun."
"What if I can't do it?" I was worried I was too squeamish to permanently scar someone with ink. It was one thing to watch it done and a whole other level to do it.
Tucker just smiled, a long slow curve of his lips. "You love to draw. This is a human canvas. There isn’t anything better, Winter."
"I guess I won't know until I try it. If I start apprenticing, we might need another receptionist—"
"No way." Tucker stood abruptly. "I'm not hiring your sister."
"Why not? She went in for drug use not stealing." I didn't mention all the times she'd taken money from me or my parents. That wasn't relevant now that she was clean.
"I'm not, and that's the end of it. You and Gig can share those duties. You're going to have to start coming in before noon and practicing. I'm not paying you for those hours either."
"Gee, you make this sound so appealing."
"You need a job that pays more money, right? Well, this is it. You could have a real career at this. You're an amazing artist, and after you start inking, I bet your designs flourish even more. Concentrate on that and forget about your sister."
