One night at dinner, a woman revealed to her husband that she had a fatal strawberry allergy.
“That can’t be!” the husband said. “We’ve been married for years and this is the first I’m hearing of it!”
“It’s true,” the wife said. “I know it.”
The husband stared at her with his mouth hanging open, replaying in his head the countless times she had unknowingly ingested strawberries in the past and survived without even a rash.
“I know it,” the wife repeated, staring into his eyes.
The husband let it go then, and the two ended up having a lovely dinner. But for weeks after, he couldn’t escape the nagging certainty that his wife’s “allergy” was all in her head. He kept a determined eye on everything she ate and drank, waiting for a moment when she’d accidentally consume even a trace amount of the supposedly sinister fruit, but the occasion never arose.
One day, however, he found a way to convince his wife of her delusion. The two were invited to a dinner party, and they were tasked with bringing a dessert. The husband, of course, offered to order the cake from the bakery, and after his wife agreed and thanked him for his considerateness, he called the baker and asked that she make a standard chocolate cake with one notable instruction: include a puree of strawberry in the batter.
When the couple arrived at the dinner party, they greeted their friends and the husband took the cake to the kitchen and placed it on the counter, where it sat until the end of the night, when all the guests were ready for dessert.
The husband cut the cake, plated each slice, and began handing the pieces out to his friends. When he held out one to his wife, she took it without hesitation. Now it was time for him to prove once and for all that her imagination was much more dangerous than any strawberry.
As the guests began to eat the cake, they remarked on its deliciousness, how rich and sweet and utterly sinful it was, but the husband ignored them, instead focusing on his wife, who at that moment was putting a forkful of cake into her mouth. He watched as she chewed, the look on her face shifting from relaxed to curious to concerned. Her hand went to her throat, and she looked at her husband with alarm.
“Is there strawberry in this?”
For a moment, the husband was struck with panic. What if I was wrong? What if I’ve killed her? But then he remembered all the times she had ingested the fruit before: The bottle of wine they had drunk on their honeymoon that the sommelier had said contained notes of strawberry when she was in the bathroom. The bedtime tea he prepared for her when she was anxious and jittery. The peanut butter and jelly sandwich he made her after he accidentally purchased strawberry jam instead of the usual grape.
“Absolutely not,” the husband said.
His wife exhaled in relief and lowered her hand, a smile forming on her face.
“Thank goodness,” she said, shaking her head. She took another bite and turned to her friend. “I’m allergic, you know.”
The husband smiled but said nothing.
An hour or so later, when the cake was nothing but crumbs, the husband turned to his wife.
“Are you sure you feel all right?” he asked, a smirk still present on his face.
“Yes, of course,” she said. “Why wouldn’t I be?"
The husband laughed. “I knew it!”
“Knew what?”
“You’re not allergic to strawberries!” he yelled gleefully. “The cake is full of it! Your allergy was all in your mind!”
The wife gasped and clutched her chest, which only heightened her spouse’s amusement. He turned to the other guests expectantly, desiring that they share his enjoyment, catch on to the joke, but their attention was on his wife, who was now fighting for breath.
“Now, now,” the husband said. “No more of that. You’ve been fine all night.”
The wife looked up at him with her bloodshot eyes before falling to the floor, dead.
AARON H. ACEVES
Aaron is a Mexican-American writer born and raised in East L.A. He graduated in 2015 from Harvard College, where he was awarded the Le Baron Russell Briggs Fiction Prize after being nominated by Jamaica Kincaid, and received his MFA from Columbia University. His fiction has appeared in New Pop Lit, Queen Mob's Teahouse, and jmww. He currently lives in New York, and his debut novel This Is Why They Hate Us is coming spring 2022 from Simon & Schuster.
WWW: aaronhaceves.com
IG: instagram.com/aaronaceves
