“Why tattoo a woman on your chest?” I asked.

“I wanted to honor the family that saved me.

Violet would never have allowed me to tattoo her face, so I asked an artist to draw her daughter, Rose, with a violet behind her ear.

He got the nose wrong.

I went back with a photograph.” Gregory looked ashamed.

“I told people it was imaginary because I didn’t know how to explain that whole chapter of my life.”

“That explains the tattoo,” I said.