Husbandry by Allie Ritch Page A

in
having someone like her for a neighbor.
    She waved away the praise before she headed toward the exit.
    Despite her reassurances, I was nervous when I arrived at
Chuck’s hospital room. I braced myself for the sight of him looking pale and
miserable in bed, tubes running in and out of his arm and white gauze wrapped
around his head. Instead, he sat on the edge of the narrow bed without a
bandage in sight, and he wasn’t even wearing a hospital gown. He had his jeans
on, and his shirt, socks, and shoes rested beside him. Chad stood nearby,
filling out something on a clipboard.
    “Are you all right?” I walked straight to Chuck and took his
face between my hands.
    He looked tired and vaguely irritated, but otherwise
unharmed.
    “I’m fine.” His movements were stiff as he pulled me into a
hug. “Sorry to worry you. The ambulance and emergency room were overkill. I
could have just gone to my regular doctor and had him check me for broken bones.
You’d think I was dying the way everyone overreacted.”
    “I already told him I’d give him my kidney,” Chad said.
    “Your kidney?” I yanked back to stare at Chuck again. “He
said you were only bruised! You’ve got internal damages?”
    “Of course not.” He shot his spitting image a glare. “Chad
is just trying to make me laugh again, which hurts, by the way. Besides, they
could clone me a new organ if I needed one. I wouldn’t have to accept a used
one.”
    “Now who’s the comedian?” Chad returned a small grin, though
I could see the lines of strain on his face.
    “How bad is he really?” In my hurry to get up here, I hadn’t
asked Ginger for details, and Chad had only given me a quick rundown over the
phone.
    “I’m sitting right here,” Chuck protested.
    We both ignored him.
    Chad finished the paperwork and tossed the clipboard on the
foot of the hospital bed. “He has contusions on his arms and back from where he
scrabbled at the rungs and flopped on the ground. Based on the sore spot on the
side of his head, he probably clocked himself on the ladder before he touched
down. The fact that he didn’t fall from the very top and that he landed on soft
grass probably saved him from a broken bone or spinal injury. He was very
lucky.”
    “That’s what Ginger Hutchinson told me. I saw her on my way
in.”
    “She was great,” Chad announced. “She said he never lost
consciousness, though he wasn’t really alert when she asked him questions.”
    “That’s because I’d just had my brain rattled,” Chuck
grumbled. “I would have been fine if she’d given me a minute.”
    “Are you in a lot of pain?” I could tell he was irritable,
which wasn’t like him. “Does your head hurt?”
    “It aches, but my body is worse. I feel like I got tackled
by a linebacker twice my size.”
    Afraid to touch him somewhere sore, I stroked one of his
curls. “You never played football, honey.”
    When your creator was Genetic Harmony Inc., you missed out
on a lot of things in life. He and my other two husbands had joined the world
shortly after I’d finished the last personality test. They’d been aged like
fine wine to my life stage—maybe a year or two younger—and had been loaded with
all the knowledge and emotional development they needed, but no firsthand
experience. They’d skipped the awkward and sometimes painful trials of high
school, which meant they hadn’t enjoyed sports or dances or any of the great
stuff, either.
    “I could have made the team if I’d had the chance.” Chuck
picked up his T-shirt and pulled it over his head with a groan. “I would have
played better than that joke they call our home team.”
    Ignoring this remark, I fixed my entire attention on his
movements. “What are you doing? You should be lying down. Why are you getting
dressed?”
    It was Chad who answered me. “They’re sending him home.”
    “Already?”
    He knelt down to help Chuck pull on his socks and shoes.
“It’s not like he just got here. The