New Jersey state outline on the back of a hand

I am writing this at the back bench at ten to four, because the ovens take an hour to come up and there is nobody awake to tell me I am daft for doing it by hand. The bread is proving under cloths and the window is still black, so I have the lamp on and my elbows in the flour. You will laugh, but I drew the state on the steel with a floury finger this morning, the way you used to trace it on my back when we were kids in the car. The curl of the coast, the bit at the top that sticks out like a thumb. It came off the steel in one clean line.

Mr Abernathy from the fish shop came in for his rolls at half five and asked why the lamp was on at that hour, so I told him. He said Jersey was only a place people drove through on their way to somewhere else. I said that is what people always say about the places they come from. He bought a bag of seeded batch anyway and went off whistling, which I count as a win.

Here is the thing I wanted to tell you. The shop is sold. Not signed yet, but the solicitor rang on Tuesday and I said yes before he had finished the sentence. I am taking a little flat over the canal with a window that looks onto the lock, and I have decided I will bake one loaf a week for nobody and leave it on the wall for the ducks.

Come home for the christening in June. Bring the boys. There is a bench out back that wants painting, and I need someone to hold the other end of the sheet.

Your loving sister, Marian