Love and faith script designs with a heart

He was a signwriter from Kendal before he was anything else, and he could not stop writing words in loops. So he wrote LOVE in a long slant, then FAITH, and joined them with the figure eight lying on its side, because he said a thing you meant twice needed a road that never ended. Then he drew the heart above them, and filled it with stars, because the ewes were lambing under a sky so full of them you could have counted all night and lost your place. In the corner he put a dandelion clock, the sort the children blew apart every April for wishes.

The roof leaked over the kitchen that January. Water came through the ceiling and ran straight down the page, and the red bled out of the heart, the green off the word LOVE, the yellow off the stars. Nan came in with a bucket and near enough struck him with it. She wanted the drawing framed. He wanted it left wet.

He only laughed and said the drips were the best part, that nothing keeps its exact shape once it's been loved properly. Then he went out to the shed at four in the morning, when the first lamb was coming, and came back with a dandelion head he'd found under the snow. He blew it at the window so the seeds scattered over the glass. Count them, love, he said. That's how many winters you get. We never did count. The paper's still here, and so am I.