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.”
An Investment in Smoke
The word “frivolous” hung in the air between us, acrid and choking. It was a word he’d used before, to describe the heirloom tomato seeds I’d ordered, the antique watering can I’d bought at a flea market, the very idea of spending a Saturday weeding instead of power-washing the driveway.
“It’s not playing, Tom,” I said, my voice dangerously steady. “It’s a legitimate certification. It’s my dream.” I took a breath. “And what do you mean *we* can’t afford it? You just spent fifteen hundred dollars on a temperature-controlled ‘brisket-aging’ chamber!”
His face hardened. “That’s completely different! That’s an investment in my craft. It has a purpose.” He gestured vaguely toward the window, as if a crowd of adoring fans were gathered on the lawn. “People come from all over for my ribs. Who’s going to come over to look at your petunias?”
The injustice of it was a physical blow, knocking the air from my lungs. I looked at this man, this stranger in his throne, and saw thirty years of my life distilled into one, dismissive question. Thirty years of hauling coolers, of smiling at his barbecue buddies, of smelling like hickory smoke when all I wanted to smell was damp earth. Thirty years of his passions being treated as “crafts” and mine as “hobbies.”
“So your hobby is a legitimate craft, but mine is a frivolous waste of money?” The words came out colder than I intended. “The only difference is that yours is the one you care about. I have supported your obsession for thirty years, Tom. I have planned our vacations around brisket competitions. Our garage is a shrine to smoked meat. And the one time—the *one time*—I ask for the same, I’m dismissed.”
He just shook his head, picking up his magazine as if the conversation was over. As if I was over. “It’s not the same, Sue. It’s just not.”
The Click of a Keyboard
I walked away. There was nothing else to say. The rage was a hot, molten thing in my gut, but on the surface, I was ice. I went into the small spare room I used as an office, the floral wallpaper a cheerful mockery of my mood. I sat down at the desk and opened my laptop.
The screen glowed in the dark room. I navigated to the university’s website, my fingers moving with a will of their own. The course page loaded. *Master Gardener Certification Program. Fall Semester. Enrollment opens at 9:00 PM EST.*
My clock read 8:58. Two minutes. I could hear Tom in the other room, laughing at something on TV. The sound grated on my nerves. For a dizzying second, his voice echoed in my head. *Frivolous. Ridiculous. A waste.* I almost closed the laptop. It would be easier to just let it go, to retreat back into the quiet resentment that had become my life’s wallpaper.
But then I thought of the soil under my fingernails, the scent of crushed mint leaves, the singular joy of seeing a seed I planted break through the earth. That was real. That was mine. He couldn’t call that frivolous.
The clock ticked over to 9:00. I clicked “Enroll Now.” The form was straightforward. Name. Address. Payment information. I pulled out my debit card, the one linked to my “My Turn” account. The numbers felt like a declaration of independence. I clicked “Submit.” A confirmation page appeared. *Congratulations, Susan. Welcome to the Master Gardener Program.*
It was done. I hadn’t asked. I had just done it. The rebellion was quiet, just the click of a keyboard in a silent house, but it felt as loud as a revolution.
A Plot of One’s Own: The Black Tumbler
Two weeks later, a large, flat-packed box arrived. I’d ordered it the day after my first class, a lecture on the glorious, microbial world of soil composition. It was a compost tumbler, a sleek, black plastic barrel mounted on a metal frame, designed to be spun with a handle. It was, in its own way, a piece of serious equipment. An investment in my craft.
I assembled it myself on the back patio, the hex wrench feeling solid and purposeful in my hand. Tom came out, holding a mug of coffee, and watched me for a moment.
“What in God’s name is that?” he asked, eyeing the contraption as if it were an alien pod that had crash-landed next to my rose bushes.
“It’s a composter,” I said, not looking up from tightening a bolt. “For the garden. It’s a closed system. No smell, no pests.”
He grunted. “Looks like a cement mixer for hamsters. You’re going to be putting garbage in there? Right next to the garage?” He gestured toward his holy temple, where his smokers and grills and the infamous brisket-ager were stored. The implication was clear: my garbage machine was encroaching on his sacred ground.
“It’s not garbage, Tom. It’s kitchen scraps. Organic matter. It’s going to make the most incredible soil.” I gave the handle a test turn. The barrel spun with a satisfying, quiet rumble. He just shook his head and went back inside, leaving me with my new machine. I patted its smooth, black side. It felt like an ally.
The Naming of the Worms
The next Saturday, another package arrived, much smaller this time. A breathable canvas bag, writhing with a faint, internal energy. My red wigglers. A pound of them. I’d learned in class that they were the undisputed champions of composting, capable of eating their own weight in organic matter every single day.
I opened the bag and gently tipped the squirming mass into the tumbler, along with shredded newspaper and a week’s worth of coffee grounds, eggshells, and vegetable peels. They were fascinating, a tangle of reddish-brown life, disappearing immediately into the bedding I’d made for them.
A wicked little thought sparked in my mind. Tom was getting ready for the annual “Smoke on the Water” competition. He’d been obsessing over it for weeks, studying the roster of his rivals. His chief nemesis was a man from Tennessee named Mike, a hulking, bearded giant who ran a place called “Big Mike’s Smokehouse” and had beaten Tom for the grand prize two years running.
I looked down at the churning life in my bin. A particularly fat, active worm was working its way through a piece of wilted lettuce. “Well, hello there,” I whispered to it. “You look like a real champion.” I grinned. “I think I’ll call you ‘Big Mike’s Smokehouse.’”
A giddy, subversive thrill ran through me. It was a private joke, a silent rebellion no one else would ever understand. I found another energetic specimen. “And you can be ‘Smokin’ J’s BBQ Shack.’” By the time I closed the lid, I had named a half-dozen of my most productive earthworms after Tom’s most-feared competitors.
The Molasses Standard
The week before “Smoke on the Water” was always a high-stress affair. The house filled with the smell of esoteric spice rubs. Tom paced the kitchen, muttering about humidity levels and wood-chip density. He was a surgeon preparing for a major operation. His sanctum, the garage, was off-limits.
His process was a rigid, almost religious ritual, and at its heart was his secret-weapon barbecue sauce. He made it from scratch the night before every competition, and the key ingredient was a specific, artisanal brand of molasses called Black Stallion. It was thick and dark, with a smoky, bitter edge he claimed was irreplaceable. He always kept one, unopened jar in reserve, stored on a metal shelf in the garage, right next to the industrial-sized containers of paprika and cayenne.
On Wednesday night, two days before he was scheduled to leave, I went into the garage under the pretense of finding my garden shears. The air was thick with the scent of hickory and anxiety. The jar of Black Stallion sat on its shelf, a dark glass monument to my husband’s obsession.
My heart hammered against my ribs. This was no longer a private joke. This was an act of war. My hand trembled as I reached out, my fingers closing around the cool, heavy glass. I looked around the garage—at the smokers that cost more than my car, the racks of custom-made tongs, the new brisket-ager humming in the corner. *Frivolous.* The word echoed in the quiet space. I tucked the jar under my arm, hid it behind a stack of old paint cans in the darkest corner of the garage, and walked back into the house, my face a perfect mask of calm.
A Frantic Search for Black Stallion
The explosion came, as I knew it would, on Thursday evening. I was in the living room, ostensibly reading a book on companion planting, but every nerve was attuned to the sounds coming from the garage. First, the clanking of pots and pans. Then, the sound of shelves being scraped. Then, a low, guttural curse.
“Sue!” His voice was a roar. “Have you seen my molasses?”
I walked to the kitchen door, arranging my face into a placid mask of mild confusion. “What molasses, honey?”
“The Black Stallion! The one I always keep on the shelf. It’s gone!” He was standing in the middle of the garage, his hands on his hips, his face flushed. The place was a disaster zone, with spice containers and bags of wood chips pulled onto the floor.
“Gone? That’s strange,” I said, my voice full of innocent wonder. “Are you sure you know where you left it?”
“Of course I know where I left it! I always leave it in the same spot. It’s been there for six months!” He started pulling things off the shelf now, his movements frantic and clumsy. “Did you move it? Did you use it for something?”
“Tom, why on earth would I use your special competition molasses?” I asked, letting a note of gentle offense creep into my tone. “I wouldn’t dream of touching your things.” I stood there for a moment, watching him tear apart his own temple in a desperate, panicked search. It was a terrible, wonderful thing to see. “I’m sure it’ll turn up,” I said sweetly, before turning and walking back to my book.
The Worms Turn: The Bitter Taste of Third Place
Tom came home from “Smoke on the Water” with a third-place trophy and a mood as dark as his over-smoked brisket. He’d had to make a last-minute run to three different specialty stores to find a sub-par molasses, and he claimed it threw off the entire flavor profile of his sauce. He didn’t say a word on the drive home, just stared out the window, the small bronze pig on the trophy base seeming to mock him from the cup holder.
He put the trophy on the mantelpiece, tucked away behind the photos of our son, Ben, at his college graduation. It wasn’t a prize; it was a testament to his failure. For days, a cloud of gloom hung over the house.
On Sunday morning, the day after his return, I was in the kitchen, washing lettuce for a salad. The molasses jar, which had mysteriously reappeared on a completely different shelf in the garage late Saturday night, was now a silent accusation. He hadn’t mentioned its return. He didn’t have to.
I, on the other hand, was feeling rather cheerful. I’d spent the morning turning my compost and checking on my worms. “Oh, Tom,” I called out, my voice bright. “You won’t believe it! ‘Big Mike’s Smokehouse’ is just working wonders on the kitchen scraps this week. He’s really outperforming everyone else!”
From the living room, there was only a tense, loaded silence. I could feel his glare through the wall. I smiled to myself and continued rinsing the lettuce.
Whispers of Compost
My worm updates became a regular feature of our household. I treated it like sports commentary, delivering the news with the earnest enthusiasm of a proud coach. “Smokin’ J’s BBQ Shack’ is a little sluggish today,” I’d announce at dinner. “But ‘Rib-diculous Ryan’ is really pulling his weight with the coffee grounds. What a work ethic on that one!”
Tom would just clench his jaw, his fork scraping against his plate. He never acknowledged my reports, but I could see the muscle ticking in his cheek. I was taking the names of his rivals, the men who inhabited his thoughts, and attaching them to the wriggling, subterranean life in my garbage bin. I was linking his hallowed craft to my dirty pastime, and it was, I knew, driving him quietly, profoundly insane.
My Master Gardener classes were my sanctuary. I was learning about the complex dance of nitrogen and carbon, the magic of mycorrhizal fungi, the elegant architecture of a plant’s root system. My garden was beginning to transform under my newly educated hands. My tomatoes had never been so vibrant, my basil so fragrant. I was building something, creating a living, breathing system. At home, I was dismantling one.
The Molasses Protocol
The next event on the barbecue circuit was a smaller, regional competition called the “Hickory Hootenanny.” Tom’s anxiety leading up to it was palpable. His defeat at “Smoke on the Water” had shaken his confidence. This time, he was taking no chances.
A week before the event, I saw him go into the garage with a roll of masking tape and a marker. I peeked through the window and saw him taping the lid of the new jar of Black Stallion shut. He then wrote the date on the tape in thick, black letters. He placed it back on the shelf and stood there for a long moment, staring at it, as if trying to secure it with the power of his will.
It was almost pathetic. And it was a challenge.
Two nights later, I waited until he was asleep. The house was still and dark. I crept into the garage, a small penlight held between my teeth. The taped jar was exactly where he’d left it. Using my sharpest gardening knife, I carefully sliced through the tape on one side, a clean, almost invisible cut. I lifted the lid, poured the thick, dark molasses into a spare Mason jar, and filled the Black Stallion jar with a cheap, corn-syrup-based brand I’d bought at the dollar store.
I replaced the lid, carefully aligning the tape. In the dim light, the cut was impossible to see. I hid my Mason jar of the good stuff in the back of the potting shed, behind a bag of perlite. I felt a cold knot of something—guilt, maybe, or fear—in my stomach. This was a new level of deception. This wasn’t just hiding something; this was sabotage.
An Unfamiliar Sweetness
The inevitable explosion came on the morning he was supposed to leave for the Hootenanny. He was in the kitchen, assembling his ingredients in neat, military rows. I was sitting at the table, sipping coffee and reading the newspaper.
He picked up the jar of Black Stallion and ripped off the tape. He unscrewed the lid and a strange look crossed his face. He dipped a spoon in, tasted it, and his whole body went rigid.
“What is this?” he whispered, his voice dangerously low.
“What’s what, dear?” I asked, peering over my paper.
He strode over to me, holding out the syrupy spoon. “This isn’t Black Stallion. It’s cheap crap. It’s all sugar. Where is my molasses?” His eyes were wide with a mixture of fury and genuine bewilderment. He looked like a man questioning his own senses.
I feigned a look of concern. “Are you sure, Tom? It’s in the right jar.”
“Of course I’m sure! I’ve been using it for twenty years! I know what it tastes like!” He slammed the jar down on the counter, and the cheap molasses sloshed against the glass. “You did this. You switched it.”
I folded my newspaper, my movements slow and deliberate. I met his wild-eyed gaze. “Tom, listen to yourself. You’re starting to sound paranoid. First you think the jar disappears, now you think I’m switching the contents? I think the stress of these competitions is getting to you. Maybe you should take a break.”
He just stared at me, his mouth opening and closing, but no words came out. He was trapped. To accuse me further would be to admit to a level of domestic insanity he wasn’t ready for. To admit I could have outsmarted his little tape-and-marker security system was to admit defeat. He was sputtering, cornered not by my anger, but by my calm, reasonable, gaslighting concern. And in that moment, I knew I had him.
The Brittle Bark: A Crack in the Foundation
He went to the Hickory Hootenanny. He came in seventh. When he got home, he didn’t even bother bringing the participation ribbon into the house. He walked past me, his face a stony mask, and went straight to the garage. I heard the metallic clang of something being thrown.
Later that evening, I was in my office, sketching out a new design for the perennial bed along the back fence. Tom appeared in the doorway, leaning against the frame. He looked deflated, all the bluster and arrogance knocked out of him.
“Why are you doing this, Sue?” he asked, his voice rough.
I put down my pencil. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t,” he said, his voice sharp. “Don’t play dumb. The molasses. The worms. The… everything. This isn’t you.” He took a step into the room. “Is this about the Master Gardener course? Because you’re taking it. You won. Is this some kind of punishment?”
The question hung in the air. Was it punishment? Yes. But it was more than that. It was about being seen. It was about forcing him to acknowledge my world in the only language he seemed to understand: the language of his.
“I’m not punishing you, Tom,” I said, my voice even. “I’m tending my garden.”
He let out a short, bitter laugh. “Right. Your garden.” He looked around my small office, at my books on botany and my soil charts taped to the wall. His eyes were filled with a contempt that felt ancient. “What have you ever built, Susan? What have you ever *really* achieved? A nice row of daisies? I build things. I win things. I create something people want. You play in the dirt and talk to worms. And now you’re trying to ruin the one thing I have, the one thing I’m good at, because I wouldn’t pay for your little hobby.”
Every word was a perfectly aimed stone, striking the most fragile parts of me. Thirty years of being the supportive wife, the quiet partner, the woman behind the man. Thirty years of believing my contributions, while different, were equal. He had just told me, in no uncertain terms, that they were nothing. The rage I’d been nursing for weeks felt suddenly small and petty, replaced by a deep, cavernous hurt.
The View from the Garden
I didn’t answer him. I stood up, walked past him out of the room, and went out the back door into my garden. The sun was setting, casting long shadows across the lawn. The air was cool and smelled of damp earth and blooming phlox. This was my sanctuary, my place of peace. But he had followed me out here, his accusation poisoning the air.
I looked at my compost tumbler, the black barrel silhouetted against the vibrant orange sky. Big Mike’s Smokehouse and his colleagues were in there, silently, diligently, turning waste into life. I had turned them into weapons. I had taken this beautiful, regenerative process and made it a tool for psychological warfare.
The victory, if that’s what it was, felt hollow. It hadn’t made him respect me. It had only made him meaner, more defensive. It hadn’t bridged the gap between us; it had widened it into a chasm. I was winning a war he didn’t fully understand we were fighting, and the prize was a marriage that was crumbling into dust.
I sank down onto the small stone bench near my hydrangeas, the rough stone cold through my jeans. I wasn’t a master gardener yet, but I knew one thing: you couldn’t force a plant to grow with anger. You couldn’t poison the soil and expect beautiful things to bloom. And that’s what I had been doing. I’d been poisoning the soil of my own life, hoping it would only affect his side of the garden.
An Unspoken Truce
Our son, Ben, called the next day. He was a junior architect living in Chicago, and our weekly calls were usually a highlight. This one was strained. Tom and I were on speakerphone, performing a pantomime of a normal, happy couple.
“So, Dad, you getting ready for the Ribfest Royale next month?” Ben asked. “Gonna finally take home the big one?”
“I’m working on it, son,” Tom said, his voice flat.
“And Mom, how are the classes going? Are you officially a garden wizard yet?”
“Almost,” I said, trying to inject some warmth into my voice. “I’m learning so much. My compost is incredible.”
I heard Tom sigh on the other end of the line. A deep, weary sound. After we hung up, the silence in the house was heavy, suffocating. He was in his recliner, not with a magazine, but just staring at the blank television screen. He looked older than his fifty-nine years. He looked tired.
I went into the kitchen and made him a sandwich—roast beef on rye, his favorite, the way he liked it, with extra horseradish. I put it on a plate with a few pickles and a glass of iced tea. I walked into the living room and set the tray down on the end table next to him.
He looked at the sandwich, then up at me. His eyes were guarded, confused. I hadn’t made him a casual lunch in years.
“Thank you, Sue,” he said, his voice quiet.
It wasn’t an apology. And it wasn’t forgiveness. It was just a sandwich. But it was the first non-barbecue-related thing we had shared in a long, long time. It felt like a white flag, fluttering over a battlefield that was still littered with landmines.
The Jar on the Shelf
The Ribfest Royale was the biggest competition of the year. The grand prize was ten thousand dollars and a feature in *Smoke & Fire Quarterly*. For Tom, it was the Super Bowl, the World Series, and the Nobel Prize all rolled into one. In the years past, the month leading up to it would have been a frenzy of preparation, of obsessive tinkering and frantic energy.
This year, the house was quiet. He still practiced, but the frantic edge was gone. He was more methodical, more subdued. He seemed to be going through the motions, all the joy and fire banked to a low, smoldering ember. He never mentioned molasses, and neither did I.
The day before he was set to leave, I walked into the garage. He was standing in front of the shelves, staring. My Mason jar, filled with the real Black Stallion molasses, was sitting right there, in the open, next to the cheap impostor I had put in its place. I had put it there that morning.
He didn’t turn around. He knew I was there. We both stood there, in the quiet of his temple, looking at the two jars. The real and the fake. The truth and the lie.
The power was mine. I could let him take the good stuff, a silent offering of peace. Or I could say nothing, letting him choose, forcing him to either trust his own senses or trust that I wasn’t his enemy. The air was thick with unspoken words, with thirty years of history, with the scent of hickory and dirt and a marriage that was one wrong move away from turning to ash. He slowly reached out his hand, his fingers hesitating just inches from the jars. And he waited
About the Author
