Black and white photo of hands in beaded lace sleeves, with a small fine line script tattoo on one finger.

Small script tattoo on a finger

Fine line · Hand · Black and grey · Photo

A close crop shows a woman's hands held together in front of a beaded, lace-covered gown, with only part of her lower face and hair visible. A small, thin black script tattoo sits along the side of one finger. The photograph is monochrome, with soft contrast against a dark background and the embroidery adding fine texture across the composition.

Fine line Lettering Hand Script Finger Hand Lace

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Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The gown has to be finished by Saturday, and Mrs Pryce has sent her daughter round twice to ask whether the seed pearls have come from Leeds. You tell the girl they arrived on Tuesday, which is true, and that the cuffs are almost done, which is nearly true. Your fingers have stopped asking permission. Every bead goes on with a small pinch of the thumbnail, the way your mother taught you at the kitchen table in Carrow Bridge, where the lamp was always one candle short and nobody complained.

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On the side of your right forefinger you wrote a word in fountain pen so you would not lose it: hold. It is not a prayer, only a reminder to tell the thread when it wants to snap. By Thursday the ink has faded to a grey line, and you trace it with your thumb while the lace lies across your knees like frost on a window pane. The lattice at the left sleeve is wrong. It does not meet the scalloped edge at the wrist, and you only notice because the light from the back window finally falls low enough to show the seam.

You could let it go. The mother would never look that closely, and the bride would be too busy being looked at. Instead you unpick eleven rows with the point of a bodkin, one bead at a time, and lay them in a saucer like a row of small moons. You start again from the cuff, counting under your breath, and when the lattice finally kisses the edge exactly where it should, you bite the thread, smooth the sleeve flat, and find the faded word still there on your finger, holding.