“It will be alright,” I say, trying to cheer her up. “Look, I’ve seen plenty of boobs before in my life. Hundreds of boobs. Maybe thousands.”

“I’m sure you have,” she says and tries to laugh. “Not like mine, I bet.”

“My mom had breast cancer too. Believe me, I’ve seen it all.”

I stand up and pull out a cabinet drawer. Picking up a stack of ‘before and after’ tattoo photos, I hand them to her.

She flips through them and her whole attitude brightens up. “You did all these?” she asks.

“And many more.”

She takes a shaky breath. “Okay, I’ll show you.” She unbuttons her shirt and unhooks the front clasp of her bra then pulls it open wide.

Damn.

A double mastectomy that took both nipples. Her chest is a mangled mess of jagged scars. I make a conscious effort to not show what I’m thinking. These poor women get enough horrified looks without me adding to it.

“It’s too bad to work with, isn’t it?” she says in disappointment.

“No. Are you kidding? Of course not. As far as I’m concerned, you’re a blank canvas that I can make beautiful again. You’re not doing any reconstructive surgery?”

She shakes her head and tries not to cry. “The insurance won’t pay for it. I was wondering if you could tattoo on nipples. I heard you can do that.”

“Sure I can, if that’s really what you want to do. And they’ll look pretty damn close to real, too. But there’s another option we should talk about. Take another good look at those photos. I can design a big tattoo on your chest that will cover all of your scars. Something wild and magnificent. You’ll be going topless at the beach just to show off your cool tat.”

She thumbs through the photos again, then smiles and nods her head.

“That’s what I want. Go big or go home, I always say. Can you do horses?”

“I can do anything,” I say. “You’ll look like a warrior. Because that’s what you are, right? You beat breast cancer, so you should be proud and show it off.”

“Damn right I’m a warrior,” she says. “How soon can you do this?”

“Whenever you’re ready. Let’s talk about a design.”

An hour later, she leaves the shop with a new perkiness in her step. I walk her to the door and she takes a few steps down the sidewalk before turning around and coming back to quickly hug me.

“Thank you,” she whispers into my ear.

Chapter Eleven

Lila

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