Turn 133 of 233

Take Kimo to meet Jess at the tattoo shop. Surprisingly, she is quite maternal. Then go back to the site for morning framing. After work, hand Kimo the nail gun for fun and let him put nails in the discarded boards

The tattoo shop on Tenth Street is small and the sign says JESS — CUSTOM INK and the door chimes when Lena pushes it open with Kimo in the harness. The shop smells like green soap and the fluorescent lights buzz and the chair is vinyl and the walls are covered in flash art and photos of work done and not done and the needle is quiet because it is eight in the morning and Jess is behind the counter sorting ink caps into trays.

Jess looks up and the face is the face Lena knows — sharp, guarded, the eyes that read people before they speak — and then the face changes. The eyes drop to the harness and the guard drops with them and something else surfaces. Something soft and unguarded and surprising.

"Oh," Jess says. "Oh, he's —"

She comes around the counter and her hands are careful and her fingers are gentle on the harness strap and she touches Kimo's cheek with one finger and the boy looks at her and the humming starts and Jess's face is open and warm and maternal in a way Lena has never seen on her.

"He's beautiful," Jess says. The voice is different. Not the shop voice. Not the tough voice. A voice that is soft and low and careful.

"Nineteen pounds," Lena says. "Three weeks old. Growing like a weed."

"He looks like you. The face. The eyes." Jess touches his hand and the fist closes around her finger and she laughs and the laugh is the laugh of a woman who did not expect to laugh in her own shop at eight in the morning because a baby grabbed her finger.

"You want to hold him?"

Jess hesitates. The hesitation is the hesitation of a woman with tattoo needles for hands and green soap in her cuticles and a vinyl chair behind her and the hesitation lasts one second. She holds out her arms and Lena lifts Kimo from the harness and settles him into them and Jess holds him the way you hold something fragile and precious and the boy hums against her chest and Jess's eyes are wet and she doesn't say anything and the moment is the moment.

"You're good with him," Lena says.

"I had a sister," Jess says. "Younger. She died. This is — it's been a while."

She holds Kimo for five minutes and the boy sleeps against her and the shop is quiet and the ink caps are unsorted on the counter and the morning light comes through the window. Lena takes him back and the harness is warm and Jess wipes her eyes with the back of her wrist and the guard comes back up but slower than before.

The site is ready when Lena arrives. The studs are stacked and the nail gun is charged and the crew is on the pad and the morning framing starts at nine-fifteen. Kimo rides the harness through the south wall and the west wall and the header lifts and the O-line leverage is there — the belly as counterweight, the hips as posts, the nail gun barking in the steady rhythm that the crew knows. Walt watches the walls go up and the nod is there and the morning is the morning and the work is good.

At four-thirty the shift ends and the crew breaks down the sawhorses and the scrap boards are piled by the dumpster. Lena sits on the concrete pad with Kimo on her lap and the nail gun is in her hand and the gun is unplugged from the compressor and the safety is on and she shows the boy the trigger.

"Here," she says. She puts his small hand around the grip and her hand covers his and the safety comes off and the gun goes against the scrap board and the trigger pulls and the nail drives into the wood with a sharp clean sound and Kimo's eyes go wide and the humming spikes — a bright surprised note — and then settles into something that sounds like satisfaction.

"Again?" Lena says.

The second nail goes in crooked. The third goes in cleaner. The fourth is in the board. Kimo's hand is small in hers and the grip is the grip of a boy who is three weeks old and whose hands are wide and whose fingers are strong and who is driving nails into scrap boards with his mother on the concrete pad in the Florida afternoon. Walt watches from the truck. He doesn't say anything. The nod is there and the nod is enough.