Family is Forever script lettering

The ovens went on at four as they always do, but I burned the first tray of bloomers because I kept glancing at the back door. Your mother's apron is still on its hook by the proving cupboard. I haven't moved it. Mrs Okafor from the post office asked twice whether we were closing, and I told her no, because it would have been easier to say yes.

The solicitor's letter is under the sugar tin, where you'll find it when you're ready. Last night I went through the old ledger in the flour room, the one with her looping hand down every column. Beside the Saturday takings she'd scribbled little notes: rain all morning, Ruth wants the gingerbread back, cat had five. On the final page, pressed flat under a jam jar lid, is a sheet where she'd practised one line over and over, the way she used to sign birthday cards. Family is forever, with the small word squeezed between the other two as if she was afraid it would get lost.

I'm not writing to tell you to come home. The dough doesn't care who is here, and neither, I suppose, does the bank. But the signwriter is booked for Monday to freshen the name over the door, and he wants to know which letters to keep. The swash on the F has nearly worn away in the weather. I told him to wait for your answer.

Ring me before then. Tell me what you want the sign to say, and I'll tell you whether it sounds like her.

Your sister, Ilse