My husband looked at thirty years of my life and asked what I had ever really achieved besides a nice row of daisies.
For decades, I supported his obsession with barbecue, a world of hickory smoke and expensive gadgets where his passion was a “craft.”
My own dream was a Master Gardener course, a chance to turn my love for the earth into a real skill.
He called it frivolous, a waste of money to play in the dirt. This from a man who spent a fortune on a temperature-controlled meat chamber.
He would soon learn that the most brutal revenge is grown slowly in the dark, nurtured with kitchen scraps, and served with a side of his own secret-weapon barbecue sauce.
The Weight of a Brochure: A Dream Folded in Thirds
The brochure was heavy in my hand, the glossy paper cool against my palm. It felt substantial, like a diploma or a deed to a piece of property. For three weeks, it had lived in the bottom of my purse, tucked inside a worn copy of *Middlemarch*, a secret I carried with me to the library where I worked part-time, to the grocery store, to the DMV. The University Extension Master Gardener Program. Twelve weeks. Two thousand dollars. A lifetime of daydreams condensed into a tri-fold pamphlet.
I had the money. Every extra dollar from shelving books, from helping patrons find their tax forms, from the occasional freelance indexing job I picked up—it all went into an online savings account I’d named “My Turn.” It had taken two years to reach the goal, two years of turning down lunch with my library friends and brewing my own coffee instead of buying it. The total sat there, a defiant little number on my phone screen: $2,147.38.
My garden was the one place that was unequivocally mine. Not the house, which was really Tom’s domain, a backdrop for his life. Not the kitchen, which was a functional space for producing meals on his schedule. But the quarter-acre of land behind the house—that was my canvas. My unruly, chaotic, beautiful canvas. And this course… this was the key. It wasn’t about planting prettier petunias. It was about soil science, botany, integrated pest management. It was about turning a passion into a craft.
I smoothed the brochure on the kitchen table, the smiling, sun-hatted woman on the cover beaming up at me. Tonight was the night. Enrollment opened online at 9 p.m. It was 7:30. I just needed to tell Tom. Not ask, I reminded myself. Tell.
The Barbecue King on His Throne
Tom was in his natural habitat: the worn, brown leather recliner, feet up, a copy of *Smoke & Fire Quarterly* resting on his chest. The television murmured about sports scores, but his attention was on the magazine’s glossy spread of a brisket with a bark so dark and textured it looked like petrified wood. To my husband, this was art.
“Tom?” I said, holding the brochure like a peace offering.
He grunted, not looking up. “Hmm?”
“I have something I want to talk to you about. It’s important to me.” That got his attention. He lowered the magazine, his expression a mixture of mild curiosity and impatience, the look he gets when he’s been interrupted mid-rib-rub-formulation. I laid the brochure on the ottoman in front of him.
He picked it up, his thick fingers seeming clumsy against the delicate paper. His eyes scanned the front, then he flipped it open. I watched his brow furrow, the corners of his mouth tighten. The silence stretched, filled only by the low drone of the TV. I could feel my own heartbeat, a frantic little bird in my chest.
He tossed it back on the ottoman. “Two thousand dollars?” He didn’t just say it; he scoffed it. The sound was a small, sharp thing that pricked the bubble of my hope. “To learn how to play in the dirt? Sue, that’s ridiculous. We can’t afford that right now. It’s frivolous.”
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