Free An Ornithologist's Guide to Life by Ann Hood

the country you would hear crickets, where the air is so still it makes a person move slower. On the sidewalk, Peter took Dora’s arm. His chivalry surprised her.
    â€œMaybe I do love her,” he said, his voice full of the resignation a man three times his age might have.
    Out of the car, Dora noticed that indeed Federal Hill had changed after all. Now there were Thai and Cambodian restaurants everywhere.
    â€œLet’s go in here,” Peter said. “What do you say?” He stopped abruptly.
    Dora glanced up at the sign, the squiggly lines for letters, the red dragon on the window. She had read once that they ate dogs in Cambodia. She thought of the Blue Grotto, the smell of garlic and tomato.
    But Peter was tugging her arm.
    â€œNot there,” he said. “Here.”
    She only had a moment to see where he was leading her before they were inside, and in that moment Dora read the words: BUDDY’S TATTOOS .
    M ELINDA HAD SAID nothing about tattoos. That was what Dora told herself as Peter explained what a good idea this was. He would commemorate his son’s birth. He would have a reminder of him every day for the rest of his life. And if the boy ever decided to try and find him, there would be the proof of his fatherhood right on his arm. Dora listened and looked around. It was exactly what she might expect—a little seedy with its peeling paint and hastily washed linoleumfloor, the iron smell of blood mingling with an antiseptic that reminded Dora of hospitals, and an array of customers in leather and metal. The lighting was fluorescent.
    â€œI’ll get his name and maybe like a little heart or something,” Peter said, jabbing his finger at the wall where available tattoos were displayed.
    Dora’s eyes drifted past cupids and dolphins and vaguely familiar cartoon characters.
    â€œA heart is nice,” she said. She sat on a folding chair, her purse on her lap. Like an old lady, she realized, and tried to strike a more casual pose. “But I didn’t know there was a name. Or rather, that we knew the name.” She crossed her legs at the ankle, the way she had learned in charm school back in the thirties.
    Peter studied a variety of hearts. Broken, intertwined, chubby, pink, red. “It’s Daniel,” he said, without looking at her. He pointed to one of the hearts and said, “This one’s good.”
    A fat hairy man came into the room from one of the curtained off cubicles. He wore farmer overalls with no shirt underneath. “Who’s next here?” he said.
    â€œI am,” Dora said firmly. She stood up and smoothed her skirt. “I’m getting the same as him.”
    The man looked from Dora to Peter. “Fifteen each or two for thirty,” he said. He laughed at his own joke, then wiggled his fingers at them. “Come on.”
    Dora and Peter followed him into one of the cubicles.
    â€œYou show him,” she told her grandson.
    Again Peter pointed to a heart and explained the lettering he wanted for the name. He answered questions about colorand size. The man nodded thoughtfully, not unlike a painter Dora had once watched in Paris who sat by the Seine with his easel and tubes of paint. Even when the tattoo man— tattoo artist , Dora silently corrected herself—prepared his tools, the needles and dyes and medicated swabs, Dora thought of that French painter, how his nose was peeling and pink from sunburn, the yeasty way he’d smelled, his serious concentration. She had wanted to buy that painting; it had filled her with a longing for things she would never have but always want. Bill had laughed at her, claiming it was simply bad art. They had continued their stroll along the river, Bill reading from the guidebook, pointing at this bridge and that monument, while Dora kept glancing over her shoulder at the man painting.
    â€œYou need to take off your sweater,” the tattoo artist told Dora gently.
    She had put