Black fine line tattoo of a mother holding a baby, placed on the upper back below the shoulder blade.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Mother and child outline on upper back

Fine line · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A single-line outline of a mother cradling a baby, with a simple face on the child and flowing lines for the mother's hair and arm. The linework is thin and even, in black ink with no shading, and the design sits on the upper back against plain skin. A domestic indoor background with a doorway is visible at the top left.

Fine line Back Mother Child Embrace Outline

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Janet,

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I'm writing on the back of the raffle ticket because the Crown's pen has run dry and I can't sleep anyway. You'll remember Mr Pardoe's art room, with the radiator that clanked through every lesson. You were the only one who never lifted your pencil. You drew everything in one unbroken line, and we all said it was showing off, though I always thought it was the bravest thing in that room.

Pat Loveday came over at the buffet with her reading glasses on a chain and said she still had the card you made for her mum's leaving do, folded inside a Bible since 1989. She opened it on the trestle table between the sausage rolls and the trifle. A woman bent over a small child, both drawn in one wandering line, the hair trailing off the edge like smoke off a match. Pat said it was the only thing from school she'd ever kept, and she was sure you'd made it from nothing but memory.

Then she asked whether you still drew like that, and I didn't know what to say. I told her I'd pass the question on, and she laughed and said you'd know which question she meant. I've been turning it over all night. I think she wanted to know whether a line that never breaks can still find its way back to the page after all these years.

I've put the card in an envelope with this letter. Keep it or post it back, whichever you like. Pat's address is on the back, and so is mine, in case the pen packs in again.

Love, Maureen