In this story a mother orders a birthday cake for her son but the same day her son, Scotty, is in a road traffic accident and ends up in a coma. The anxiety of the boy’s parents throughout the day is interspersed with calls from the baker, who wants the cake paid for and collected. It’s interesting because there are two versions of this story: the originally published one, which was brutally cut by editor Gordon Lish, and the restored full version about four times the length, subsequently released and titled ‘A Small, Good Thing’, which became one of Carver’s most lauded and best loved stories. Towards the end of this version, the mother has taken a break from watching over the child who is in a coma in hospital and gone home intending to take a bath. When she reaches home, someone phones and asks for her by name. She asks, “Is it about Scotty?” The man says, “It has to do with Scotty, yes.” That is the last line, the abrupt ending of the Lish version. It leaves us with the bitter sense of cruelty and selfishness of the baker and his unconcern for the plight of the distraught parents.
First published in What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, Knopf, 1981
A Personal Anthology 