The Remedy

By Tara Campbell

Liv suspected her husband was having an affair. To find out, she consulted an herb she’d kept hidden in a box inside a pouch inside a drawer. It looked like dried broccolini, and if both of them took it, she’d be able to read his mind. She swallowed half, then put the rest in his soup.

After dinner, Liv washed the dishes and wondered how long the herb would take, what it would feel like, whether her fears were true.

In her head she heard his voice: “Sorry, baby.”

Liv tried not to think about where she kept the gun.

            
Tara Campbell is a writer, teacher, Kimbilio Fellow, and fiction editor at Barrelhouse. She’s the author of a novel, TreeVolution, a hybrid fiction/poetry collection, Circe’s Bicycle, and a short story collection, Midnight at the Organporium. She writes because there are too many “what ifs” not to.