But he didn’t give me my first tattoo till a year later, the day after we were married: a little butterfly pooled in the small of my back. Five years later, he began referring to it as his “early work,” even though he’d been tattooing for twenty-five years before he met me.
Lois narrates the story of her and Tiny’s love. The story is a love letter to Tiny just as her tattoos are a love letter from Tiny to her. Similar to how their love grows more complicated and intricate as time progresses, the tattoos that Tiny embeds on her skin become more intricate and require more skill. Even after Tiny’s death, all Lois has to do is look down in order to be reminded of Tiny and the love that they shared. No one else can look at her without seeing the scars of a never-ceasing relationship. Despite the fact that Tiny dies, his art and his memory live on in her skin, so much so that Lois even receives calls from another tattoo artist requesting her picture so he can show the world what kind of artist Tiny was. Lois refuses because a picture of her body will not show the essence of his work; the essence of his work is their love.