Longlist – 2026 Gooseberry Pie Annual Writing Competition
by Karen Walker
On the table I’ve arranged photos of my daughter Jess at her wedding last summer, of my prize-winning pumpkins, of me volunteering at a beach clean-up and performing my heart out in the town production of Mamma Mia!, of Hope the sad-eyed hound I’ve rescued: basically of everything in my life.
Bump pushes the pictures aside and gobbles all the chicken salad sandwiches then the salmon wraps before dunking a carrot stick into cucumber dip, licking it clean, dunking and licking until I distract with lemonade and, upon learning it wants something stronger, sigh about the tragic loss of white wine because the doctor has advised me to avoid alcohol, and so my house is, very sadly, dry.
Bump then belches it’s time to go and suddenly I’m lying about what fun this was and pleading to do it again when Bump stops, stares at the table and, praying that it’s interested in the photos and in me, I go on and on (as I tend to do) about wanting to be a grandma, about finally visiting Rome, taking up landscape painting, and, after all these lonely years, about going on a date again before choking that I just, just can’t be out of time, at which point Bump interrupts to ask if it can take the oatmeal-coconut cookies and I blurt sure and offer the cookie plate too though it was my mom’s and, I sob, she died of lymphoma.
Bump is halfway down the front steps before I manage something semi-coherent about seeing it in the morning and it turns back to me and nods, and, gasp, I notice how red it now looks and, dear God, that it seems bigger, too.
Finding me freaking out on the couch, Hope the hound snuggles until I’m calm and clear enough to wonder aloud if I should text Bump later to ask, as breezily as possible, if it’s enjoying the cookies and would like the recipe.
My dog pants go ahead because that might make me feel better and, while I’m schmoozing, I should also offer it a ride to the doctor’s appointment tomorrow which is such a super idea—Bump and I are, after all, in this together—that I hug and thank my Hope.
Karen Walker writes and draws and paints in Ontario, Canada. Her recent work is in or forthcoming in Does It Have Pockets, Full House Literary, SoFloPoJo, Weird Lit, and Hotch Potch.
Photo by Carrie Borden on Unsplash
