White Chrysanthemums

By Michael Hopkins

FIRST PLACE in the November 2026 Competition

On the mantelpiece, between the cards and the funeral order of service, stood a vase of white chrysanthemums.  Linda had arranged them badly.  Her mother would have noticed.

‘What will you do now?’ asked Dawn, rinsing cups at the sink.

Linda could have given the usual answers: the paperwork, the charity shop, the garden.  For thirteen years every day had been measured in tablets, lifting straps, meals softened with a fork, calls to district nurses.  Before that there had been Dad.  She had loved them both.  She had not regretted the years.

‘You’ll have time for yourself,’ Dawn added, as if that might be something to dread.

Linda glanced towards the kitchen drawer.  Under the tea towels lay a sketchbook, its edges soft and grey from being pulled out at odd moments.  At twenty she had wanted art school.  Her mother, strong then, had called painting a pleasant pastime and wondered when Linda would find something useful to do.

Later, with Mum unable to stand unaided, the pencils stayed in the drawer.  There was always another task. Her pencil, once used for drawings a teacher had praised, now marked dosage charts taped inside the cupboard door.  Her mother’s hand in hers, the last evening, had been small and warm.

‘Perhaps I’ll draw,’ she said.

Dawn smiled.  ‘That’ll be nice.  A hobby.’

The word landed oddly.  Linda looked at the chrysanthemums: the veins in each leaf, the shadow the vase threw across the wood, a few petals already loosening.  All these years she had been seeing like this, and calling it nothing.

‘No.’  She surprised herself.  ‘It isn’t a hobby.’

She took the sketchbook from the drawer, and from the pot by the phone the pencil she used for the chart.  She couldn’t yet bring herself to move the funeral cards.  There was room beside them.

Judges’ Comments: A thoughtful exploration of how an individual’s creativity has been sacrificed to duty and the internal conflict that comes with being released from that role. An excellent portrait of how a crack can let the light in. Very well done.