The tender draws her own blood, releases the tourniquet, fills the tube, gently backs out the needle, applies cotton and a bandage to the venipuncture site. She taps the collection tube, siphons a sample, and squirts it into a small beaker half-filled with solution. Outside in the night air, a barred owl asks, “Who cooks for you?”

Twenty minutes later, kit bag slung over her shoulder, the tender presses buttons on a security keypad, unlocking the greenhouse door. She enters, waits for her eyes to adjust in the humid afterglow near the first row of flowering maples, where she touches the soil. Satisfied, she turns toward the heart-shaped spathe of an oilcloth flower, haptic memory of its waxy texture already on her skin. Loamy scents mingle as she pauses beneath the lambent canopy steeped in phosphorescence like a movie theater before the projector flares to life. Moving on, she reaches the curtain in the far corner. She enters. 

“Good evening, Asili,” she says, savoring the Kiswahili word for nature that ends in a smile. Her Tanzanian mother would have laughed about that if she had been alive to meet the creation.

On a pole, the tender hangs a bag of solution, connects it to an extension tube, and checks the drip rate.

“It was ashing outside all day,” she says. “But don’t worry. Those fires are hundreds of miles away.”

She inspects a blossom, its lips of velvet mimicking tiny bees. Retrieving a phial from her kit bag, she removes the rubber stopper and tweezes out two amber bits of pollen. Flipping an eyeglass magnifying lens over one eye, she steadies the tweezers, gently pulls back a petal, and dabs pollen into a small hole. After several attempts, the pollen finds purchase in the sticky tunnel. 

She stands, strokes a leaf, then another. Higher up, her fingers follow curves and curious ridges that lead to the transition between plant stem and human torso. She traces a line along the spine, the shoulders, neck, chin, nose, eyes and ears. The tender steps back, her eyebrows raised, anticipating a glance from the creation. 

#

Coughing into his sleeve, the delivery man checks the address. He works six days a week, from four in the afternoon until one in the morning. Most days, he punches in early and waits only a few minutes for the first order to pop up on his phone. This one was called in around midnight. This house, more like a guard shack, is bracketed by high, opaque gates. 

The delivery man sets down a bag on the table under a yellow porch light, snaps a photo, knocks on the plum painted door. A dim light flicks on inside the shack. He turns to leave.

The tender opens the door.

“Thanks,” she calls out and picks up the bag.

“So,” says the delivery man, perched at his car door, “is this place part of the university?”

The tender gazes off toward the campus on the hill. “Who told you that?”

He raises his phone again. “Evil social media,” he says.

The tender smiles. “We’re a horticultural cooperative. Gardeners.”

“In a shack?” he asks.

“In the greenhouse,” she says, pointing behind her.

He nods toward the sky. “All that light back there,” he says. “I get it.”

“I don’t think you do. No one’s growing chiba in here, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

He laughs. “What’s that?”

“We’re community gardeners compensating in a food desert,” she says. “With a few experimental hybrids.”  

The delivery man waves. “Nice.” He angles into his vehicle. The passenger window slides down. “Can anyone join?”

“We’re full right now,” she says through her half-closed door. “But there might be an opening this summer.” 

#

In the dream, the creation is speaking to her. Eyes closed, they run through a forest. The creation warns her of the danger of opening their eyes. 

Sitting up in bed, the tender waits for meaning as the dream lingers and fades. She runs to the bathroom. Coffee is burbling in the tiny kitchen. Outside the bathroom window, a Carolina wren loudly sings, “Tea kettle tea kettle tea kettle.” 

Two months have passed since the delivery man asked about joining. He arrives before noon. 

“Welcome,” the tender says. She leads him through the gate. They follow a brick path lined with purple blooms. At the greenhouse door, she taps the code and they enter.

“Moist in here,” the delivery man says. “This place is enormous.”

The tender lists the unique attributes of the building, the duties of their members, and her favorite plants. She refers to them as darlings.

“Charlotte takes care of these darlings,” she says as they walk around a plot verdant with leafy bunches and stalks. “Over here is the soon-to-be available plot.”

The delivery man admits he is a novice. “Do you hold workshops?”

“In fact, we do,” she replies. “And I’m always around to guide you.”

“So you live in the shack?”

“It’s really my office,” she says. “But it doubles as my living space.”

They continue the tour. She talks about the hybrid flowers, gestures toward the creation.

“We’ve had several successes the past few years,” she says. “Award-winners, in fact.”

The delivery man allows his eyes to pause on the face of the creation, quickly glances toward its torso, then back to the tender.

“So,” he begins, “would I take over the open plot as is? Or start over with new seedlings? I love avocados. And corn.”

“I can help get you started,” the tender says. 

The delivery man adds, “And maybe a hybrid flower.”

At the end of the summer, the horticultural cooperative gathers on a Sunday morning between the chimney bellflowers and the flowering maples. After their meeting, the gardeners retreat to plots bursting with reds and yellows, lush greens flowing up and out. Several orchid hybrids, curls of hair tied back and downcast eyes peeking through canvas netting, rise above the peppers, cucumbers, tomatoes. In his plot, the delivery man works the soil under string beans and corn, then checks three pots, an avocado plant in each. By noon, most of the members have departed. The delivery man is putting his tools away when the tender approaches and picks up a watering can. She returns to her plot in the back corner, where the creation has been studying something outside the greenhouse through a gap in the curtain.

“What’s got your attention out there, darling?” the tender asks, following the creation’s gaze to a dozen honeybees buzzing in a clump on the glass. “Oh yes, they want you, don’t they? Please tell them to stay outside. Plenty of coneflowers to keep them happy.”

The delivery man startles her. “Just heading out,” he says.

The tender recovers quickly and smiles. “Enjoy the rest of your weekend.”

“Thanks, you too.”

He doesn’t leave. For a moment he watches the bees outside, then turns to face the tender. “Amazing what you’ve done here,” he says. “Really beautiful.”

The tender smiles. “You’re off to a good start.”

“Do you, uh,” he turns away, then back again. His chin points at the creation. “Would I be able to grow one?”

The tender brightens. “Yes,” she says. “There are varying degrees of success, but part of the joy is in the process.”

“Do you name them?” he asks. “Your hybrids?”

The tender glances over her shoulder. 

“Is that a weird question?” he asks.

“Not at all,” she says. “Actually, I do.”

His eyes flitter from the hybrid’s base, where the intravenous port sits neatly embedded in waxy green tissue, to the orbed, tan breasts and their small, coppery areolas. Caught looking, his eyes settle in the area of its ribcage. “How about this one?”

The tender studies him. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I’m late for an appointment.”

#

She is dreaming of Asili again. They are arguing about moving to another country. 

“We can’t go north,” the tender says. “The wildfires are still too hot.”

The tender drifts into deep sleep, doesn’t hear the alert on her phone, doesn’t see the security camera feed when someone wearing a mask enters the greenhouse and, with a scalpel, slices a cutting from the creation. 

The following spring, the delivery man arrives with an Ophrys apifera in a large pot on a wheeled cart. He struggles to lift the pot, then settles it beside his avocado plants.

“How do you like my new orchid?” he asks. “Figured it would have a better chance here than in my apartment. At least for now.” Sprouting from a mint green stalk in the center, a stumpish braid of vascular tissue the color and texture of peach skin burgeons into an oval, stamped with a mandibular depression and embryonic facial features. “I named her Bea, with an a on the end,” he says, rotating the pot for a better view.

“You’ll have to hand pollinate,” the tender replies. “No bees allowed in here.”

“Fine with me,” says the delivery man. “I’m highly allergic to the damn things.”

In August, the tender watches as the delivery man stoops over his hybrid and makes an OKAY sign, thumb and forefinger tightly squeezing a toothpick, inked black at one end, tipped with pollen. Grasping a petal, he pokes the toothpick around the folds, then motions toward several blooms that have died off.

“That’s expected,” the tender says, “after pollination.” 

“Seems happy though, right?”

The hybrid’s face is fully formed, curved lips, nose, eyes glistening in the humid air, its light rust hair with a greenish hue cascading in curls, looser than the other hybrid orchids in the greenhouse. Narrow shoulders slope away, arms held slightly back.

“You didn’t stake its wrists?” the tender asks. “Did you?” 

“No,” the delivery man blanches. “Not really.” He mutters something about armpit hair.

The tender takes a breath. “They like their arms free,” she says, gesturing toward the back plots, where, behind its curtain, the creation raises its arms in apparent demonstration. “There’s no reason to tie everything down,” the tender continues. “Sometimes novice gardeners go overboard.” 

“I’ll be careful,” says the delivery man, glancing at the scarf the tender has been wearing on her head lately. “So, are you okay?”

By December, the tender is too sick to continue caring for the greenhouse full-time. She spends two weeks in a hospital. Charlotte takes over as administrator, arriving most mornings and working until sundown. She speaks to the creation, but she almost never strokes its leaves, shoulders, cheeks. At night, the office shack is vacant.  

One night, after the grow lights have winked off, the creation dozes in the close air behind its curtain, does not stir with the monotonous refrain of the security lock, or when the curtain flutters, or with the whoosh of entrance, vibration of motion, flash of light and shadows. Not until a sudden crash and metal scraping against stone. The creation’s eyes snap open. For a while, nothing. Then its curtain is drawn slowly and the creation feigns disregard, eyes cast downward. The curtain drops back into place. A figure retreats around the corner, out of sight. A whisper, then a hushed zzziiippp, followed by rhythmic slapping that continues for a minute. Slap. Slap. Slap. The rhythm ends with an exhalation. Another minute passes, the click of metal at the main entrance, one more high-pitched beep, and night settles in the greenhouse.

#

Treatment temporarily bolsters the tender. She returns to find the delivery man’s plot depleted. Arms on hips and a tsk-tsk at the dry soil beneath the yellowing string beans and the stunted corn, she attributes the condition to neglect. After testing the pH level, she sprinkles in some lime, runs a garden fork around the bed, stretches out the hose and waters. It’s the responsibility of the delivery man, but she refuses to allow anything to die. The avocado plants are in better shape, evidence of a recent harvest. Finally, checking the hybrid, she reaches toward its base. The intravenous port is askew, rudely attached. Crawling between corn and the large pot, now too heavy to move, she discovers a fresh gash in the stem next to the port site. The gash is oozing fluid. 

“What on earth?” she says, squatting in the soil. She stands and bumps into Isaiah, who begs pardon and continues to his plot of tomatoes and spinach. Steve, watering his basil, parsley and mint, looks over at Isaiah. They both shrug as the tender hurries to her office, opens a cabinet, selects an IV kit and a bag of solution. Back in the greenhouse, she stops at the tool cabinet, picks up a trowel and a jar filled with slate-colored pitch.  

The repair is done in ten minutes. She heads back to the office, turns on the computer and opens the security feed, discovers that nothing has been recorded during the past month.  

After lunch, still shaken by what she now suspects may be perverse debasement in the delivery man’s plot, the tender visits Asili behind the curtain. The tall hybrid is staring beyond the windows.

“What happened while I was away?” the tender asks.

She kneels, brushes the stem, caresses a branch, a leaf, the torso, finds a patch of dry dermal tissue. Opening a can, she scoops some sea green lotion and dabs it on the dry area. Rising, she dabs more lotion on its back, its shoulders, its neck. She stands face to face with the hybrid.

“The security cameras were offline,” the tender says. The hybrid holds her gaze. “You know what happened, don’t you?”

The hybrid’s lips turn down and its glistening eyes move off toward the open curtain, then to the ground.

#

The next morning, the tender turns off her alarm. She sits on the edge of her bed. A red light is blinking on the wall. She stands, leans on the wall until her balance steadies, then rushes through the door. Outside, an ambulance, lights flashing, has pulled up close to the gate. Isaiah is talking to a police officer. Two EMTs rush past. Between them, the delivery man lies on a stretcher, bulging eyes open, his face red and puffy.

“What happened?” the tender asks Isaiah.

“Got here early,” he replies. “Found him on the ground choking and barely breathing.”

The officer is speaking to her but the tender ignores him, attracted to the first rays of hazy morning sun spotlighting coneflowers as they sway in the light breeze. She moves toward the purple blooms, walks around the corner of the greenhouse, swats away a few honeybees buzzing by on their way to a hive in an oak tree at the edge of the property. Squinting through the reflections on the greenhouse window, she locks eyes with the hybrid. Moments pass like seasons and they hold one another in unspoken gaze, until the curtain drops back into place.