“The amount of money I’ve sunk into this little venture to keep her busy is staggering,” my husband announced to his CEO, his arm a proprietary weight on my waist.
He hadn’t given me a single cent for this event. He had laughed in my face when I showed him the five-thousand-dollar budget.
For years, every expense for my so-called “silly hobby” was a pathetic plea for the household allowance he controlled, a dance of justification for funds that were supposed to be ours.
This wasn’t just a party; it was a career-making opportunity with two hundred guests, including his entire professional world.
He built his reputation in front of these people with charming lies, never imagining that I had secretly secured my own financing and was about to use his boss’s retirement party stage to burn that reputation to the ground.
The Simmering Pot: A Hobbyist’s Budget
The number blinking on my banking app was $17.38. That was the official net worth of Linda’s Kitchen, my burgeoning, one-woman catering company. It was also, not coincidentally, what was left of the “household allowance” Tom had transferred three weeks ago, a full week late.
“Just need to get some prosciutto and fancy olives for the Henderson appetizer trial,” I said to the empty kitchen, practicing the casual tone I’d need to use on him later. My son, Jake, used to call it my ‘Mom Voice,’ the one that sounded breezy but was really holding up a thousand pounds of unspoken stress. Now, I called it my ‘Wife Voice.’
The stainless-steel island Tom insisted we install—a monstrosity that showed every single fingerprint—gleamed under the recessed lighting. It was a professional-grade workstation in a kitchen that was, for all intents and purposes, a stage. It was part of the set for the play called “Tom’s Successful Life,” and I was a leading character: The Supportive, Idyllically-Kept Wife.
My phone buzzed. A text from Tom. *Remember we have the Martins over for drinks tonight. 7pm.* No question mark. No ‘does that work for you?’ Just a statement. An appointment notification for my own life.
I swiped it away and looked back at my prep list. The Hendersons were neighbors, celebrating a 40th anniversary next month. It wasn’t a big job, but it was a paying one. Mrs. Henderson wanted a tasting, and I wanted to knock her socks off. Prosciutto di Parma wasn’t a suggestion; it was a necessity. So were the Castelvetrano olives. But at thirty dollars a pound, the prosciutto alone would obliterate my budget. I’d have to ask Tom for the money. Again. The familiar, hot knot of anxiety tightened in my stomach. It was a monthly ritual, this dance of justification for the funds that were supposedly mine, our shared assets, filtered through his approval.
He’d call it my “little hobby.” He’d say it with a proud, indulgent smile to our friends. “It’s so wonderful she has something to keep her busy now that the kids are out of the house,” he’d say, patting my hand. But behind closed doors, every dollar was a negotiation. Every expense for “Linda’s Kitchen” was treated like a teenager asking for a bigger allowance to buy video games. The professional island was for *his* entertaining. The ingredients for *my* business? That was an indulgence.
I picked up my phone to text him, my thumb hovering over the screen. *Hey, need to do a grocery run for the Henderson tasting. Can you transfer the allowance?* The words felt pathetic. Begging. I deleted it and started again. *Morning! Hope your day is going well. Just a reminder about the household funds.* Better. Friendlier. Less like a subordinate asking for a paycheck. I hit send and watched the little blue bubble disappear, a prayer into the void. Then I got back to chopping onions, the sharp sting in my eyes a welcome distraction.
The Price of Parsley
The grocery store was my battlefield. I navigated the aisles with the precision of a bomb disposal expert, my shopping list a schematic of potential financial ruin. The organic parsley was $3.99 a bunch. The conventional, limp-looking stuff was $1.49. I stood there for a full minute, weighing the visual appeal of a vibrant green garnish against the two dollars and fifty cents I could save.
This was my life now. A forty-nine-year-old woman, whose husband made more in a month than I had made in my best year as a marketing director, agonizing over parsley. Twenty years ago, I’d managed a team of twelve and a budget of two million dollars. I’d made decisions that impacted national campaigns. Now, I was trying to justify an herb.
Tom’s text had come through as I was pulling into the parking lot. *Sent.* Just that one word. No apology for the delay. No ‘sorry, it slipped my mind.’ I checked the app. He’d sent the exact amount we’d agreed upon five years ago, an amount that had not once been adjusted for inflation. It was enough to run the house, just barely. It left almost nothing for my business. What I made from small jobs, I poured right back in, a closed loop of scraping by.
I grabbed the cheaper parsley. It would have to do.
In the deli aisle, I stared at the prosciutto. The real stuff, the good stuff, was nestled behind the glass, its delicate ribbons of fat a thing of beauty. Next to it was the domestic, pre-packaged version. It was passable. Most people wouldn’t know the difference. But Mrs. Henderson would. She was the kind of woman who summered in Tuscany. She knew her prosciutto.
I did the math in my head. If I got the cheaper ham, I could afford the good olives and a better block of Parmesan. But the prosciutto was the star. Skimping on that felt like a betrayal of my own standards. It felt like admitting that this was, in fact, just a hobby. A game of house-chef that didn’t warrant real ingredients.
“Can I help you?” the guy behind the counter asked, wiping his hands on his apron.
I pointed, the words feeling like a confession. “A quarter-pound of the Di Parma, please. Sliced paper-thin.”
The cost made my stomach clench, but walking away with that little packet of wax-paper-wrapped perfection felt like a victory. It was a small, expensive act of defiance. It was me telling myself, if no one else, that what I was doing mattered. The parsley could be limp, but the prosciutto would be perfect.
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