Honorable Mention 2026 Gooseberry Pie Writing Competition
by Sudha Balagopal
I wouldn’t have been startled by a pre-sunrise call from the police after my physically diminished, but vocally powerful, Father rammed into a stationary car outside his complex, the crash waking panicked neighbors.
I wouldn’t have cringed because I didn’t know Father’s auto insurance had expired or been tormented by the prospect of crippling repair costs and legal penalties as I tucked a scrap with my contact information under the windshield wiper of the car he’d damaged.
I wouldn’t have decided to drive him to my house for a lecture—I’m raising a grandson who hates his parents, daughter’s on the brink of third divorce, husband says I’m turning into a screaming banshee, please stop adding to my troubles—nor would we have arrived to a flooded kitchen, culprit grandson escaping to school after insisting he didn’t meddle with the dishwasher or heard Father declare he’d fix the leak before he slid-thudded on the wetness.
I wouldn’t have waded through slop while he curse-hollered, right arm in a terrifying dangle, a marionette with a snapped string, or called 911 and transported him to hospital where they requested insurance information that Father didn’t carry in his wallet, where I beseeched Admissions―his bones are fragile, dotted with holes like Swiss cheese―which did nothing to hasten his treatment.
I wouldn’t have been informed later that he’d possibly broken his ulna, needed tests, scans and of course, any procedure carried risks, which made me pace, petrified, random thought-bubbles popping: the used Toyota he got me at sixteen, the money he sneaked into my account during college, the countless times he babysat when my daughter was young, so after the nurses brought him out, I asked, “Does it hurt?” which is how we say, “I love you,” in our family.
I wouldn’t have acquiesced when he demanded I drive back to his place after the hour-long pharmacy stop, the torturous day slitherimg away by then, me still in pajamas from last night, dead phone in chest pocket—who remembers the charger in an emergency?—six cups of muddy coffee sloshing inside me, nor would I have been astonished to see a white-haired lady, kneading worried fingers, at his door, ask, “What happened, love?” heard him respond, “All I wanted was to get you fresh-baked donuts,” or watched their hug, the keys attached to the lanyard around his neck snug between them.
Sudha Balagopal’s fiction appears in Claudine Lit and Adroit Journal among other journals. She’s the author of two novellas-in-flash: Nose Ornaments and Things I Can’t Tell Amma. Her stories have been included in Best Microfiction, Best Small Fictions.
Photo by pexels-zulfugarkarimov
