I glance again at Anne, who shoots me a baffled look.

“Is John Doe a real person?” Joy asks with such innocence that I bless her little heart. If anyone can get away with a follow-up in this, she can.

“Oh he’s real,” Dad says and reaches for his corn.

“How can a parent name a child John Doe? John Doe is in books and movies and on TV. It’s what you call an unidentified person lying in a morgue, or an unidentified suspect in a crime. I mean, what does that say about someone who actually has the name? That he’s a nobody? If I had that name, I’d do whatever I had to do to be a somebody.” She turns to Bill. “Your guys must know all about John Doe.”

“Some do,” Bill says.

“Are any of them named John Doe?”

“Nope.”

“But lots of guys in prison have tattoos, right? Is that where you got yours? Are there people who do them right there, like, tattooists?”

“Tattoo artists,” he says, “and there are some. It’s all undercover, so they have to improvise tools.”

“Like how?”

“They use a stapler. Melted Styrofoam. Soot. It’s disgusting. Inmates pay them by trading food or smokes or maybe money if they have a phone and can transfer it. There’s no sterilization or anything, so there’s a lot of infection. I didn’t get my tats in prison. I wouldn’t be so dumb.”

“Where did you get them?”

“Joy,” I caution.

She turns innocent green eyes on me. “What, Mom. This is interesting.”

“You’re not getting a tattoo.”

“I’m just asking him about his.”

“Don’t get one,” says Bill.

Her head swings to his, loosened curls flying to follow. “Why not? You’ve done okay with them.”

“In a prison?” he asks. “That where you want to work?”

She has no answer.

Grateful for that, at least, I take a closer look at Bill. He is earnest in a way I wouldn’t have thought Billy Houseman could be. But no, he’s not Billy. He’s Bill.

And my father eats. No reaction to mention of tattoos, which he verbally denounced many times, or to prisons, which once would have sparked a lecture about the evils of going near one. Rather, he puts one forkful of salad carefully in his mouth, chews, then goes for another.

Bill tells Joy, “I got these when I was nineteen and doing nothin’ good with my life. Then I decided to change that. So I started at CCRI. Community college. Only courses cost, and I had to eat. Teachers hire research assistants. I wanted one of those jobs. But they didn’t want me. They looked at my tats and figured I wouldn’t be a good worker.”

“Seriously?” Joy asks. “I see people with tattoos all the time.”