Outline tulip tattoo on side of torso

Aunt Hetty had painted the roses and castles on every boat in the family fleet, but she never drew a tulip until the winter she moved into the cut for good. Nobody asked her why. She put them on the cabin door in a single line of black enamel, no shading, no colour, two leaves curling like fingers and a stem that never quite touched the ground. Then she shut the door on them and wouldn't say a word.

Dad found her letters after the funeral, tied with string inside the water tank cupboard. Each one began with a tulip sketched in the margin and ended with the same instruction: keep the line unbroken. He read them aloud at the kitchen table in Stoke Bruerne, flat and careful, the way he read lock timetables, until I took the page from his hand and saw that the flowers had no insides at all. Only outlines, as if she had left room for someone else to fill them.

The rain came on as we reached the top gate. I fetched the fine brush from the drawer and dipped it in red, then stopped, because the line was already perfect and I did not want to be the one who spoiled it. I left the door as she had left it, black on white, and let the rain find the edges.