The Brussel Sprouts War
They lingered over Sunday morning breakfast, since the sun had decided to show itself and now the rooms were sunny and warm. With the last sip of warm coffee, she asked “could you pick the Brussels sprouts today, so we can have them for thanksgiving?” Because of the sudden dip in temperature and the light dusting of snow on the deck, they knew it would be an optimum time to pick the Brussels. Thankfully, the late season deer –marauders had not taken a liking to the plants and so left them alone.
He headed off to the garden carrying a worn canvas bag and wearing the faded and torn winter work jacket that she longed to throw away. He was anxious to get this chore over so he could get the wood pile stacked and ready for winter. Strong winds ruffled the chimes from every direction around the house. She busied herself with laundry and clean up, putting off the graphics job she had to do today to meet Monday’s deadline.
It wasn’t long before she heard the door slide open in the kitchen. She walked out to find him standing there, dripping dirt and holding bundles of long, curved stalks, dark green with frost and laden with the tiny cabbages. He laid them on the floor. They stood and stared down at the stalks, each lost in their own thoughts about the next step. Quietly, she watched his nose drip onto the kitchen floor. He suggested freezing them right away. She felt resentment towards the damn things lying on the floor. At the same time, they’d never had such a crop as this, and of course they must be grateful and not waste them. She went to google how to deal with “frostbit” Brussels. She heard him clomping upstairs. In five minutes time, they both reappeared, she with her printed pages, he with his advice from a site he’d googled. “What? Why? With all the things we both have to do, why would you go and look up the same thing?” “So I don’t have to get into a pissing contest with you about what to do” he yelled loudly. And then “you know what? You do whatever the F you want to do.” And he stormed out the door.
Later, as she soaked the baby cabbages in salt and water (as instructed, to draw out the dirt and worms) she mused over Brussels sprouts. There had only ever been one person in their family that seemed keen on “those baby cabbages” as he called them. And he wasn’t even family…or was he? And her Mother served them when he was there for dinner, usually accompanying ham. While he ate them with gusto, her sister and she struggled, she gagging on the mushy, watery mouthfuls that smelled like skunks laying dead in the road. At least thirty years or more had passed since a Brussels sprout entered her kitchen. She never served them to her children. Yet, her son in his adulthood years, had declared them his favorite vegetable, “those baby cabbages.” Yes, had even used those words. And then, last year they’d found their way into the garden, who knows why. And she learned how the fresh incarnation is truly a world apart from the mushy mouthful, and she’d sliced the tiny first year specimens, and sautéed them in butter and everyone at the Thanksgiving table last year was delighted, though her son was not there, nor the long gone mysterious family dinner guest.
At dinner, they ate in silence, the bright green reminders of the morning’s ugliness glowing buttery in their bright blue bowl. She thought of her son, and she thought of him.
