The startled expression on her face made him smile.

“I knew it,” he said. “He was alone, headed for the store. They marked him.”

“Mr. Smiley, I hope you understand that I find this inquisition very embarrassing and have concerns about how my employer might regard me after hearing all this.”

“Then we won’t mention it, and if you want to, you can pay rent. But what would be better for me is if you’d just move some things into the loft—a room for you and one for Charlie, your own bathroom. And cook your own food—I’m on a training diet. Ask your friends and neighbors to keep an ear to the ground for available space. No one cares if you live frugally—it’s a virtue. Hell, I haven’t had my own house in my entire life till a few weeks ago—I’m an expert at cutting out the fat and saving money. But after your kid gets hurt because he’s not safe alone there, you have to go to plan B. I’m offering you plan B. Because I like Charlie. You? You get on my nerves. So don’t play the stereo loud.”

She made a small smile. “You don’t like me?” she asked.

“Not that much,” he said. “I like the kid—he’s smart. I like him even more now that I know he’s fighting asthma and an overprotective mother.”

“I should probably question this interest you have in my son,” she said.

“Question your son. He’s an open book, says exactly what’s on his mind. And I knew you for five minutes when I believed you’d covered every subject imaginable with your son—warning him off creeps and predators. Since he was three, I bet.”

He stopped talking for a moment, put his hands in his pockets and looked down. He quietly added, “I work with a lot of kids. Sports training, encouragement, that sort of thing. It’s a well-known fact. It’s very well documented. I didn’t have any of that when I was a kid and I don’t have kids so...” He shrugged.

“So, we about ready to go?” Scott Grant asked, briskly walking out to the courtyard from the hospital. “Lin Su, Charlie is going to his room in about ten minutes. He has responded to medication. I’ll check him in the morning...probably early since I have clinic in town tomorrow. I’ll discharge him then. So? Ready, Blake?”

“Yeah,” he said.

“Mr. Smiley? My keys? The backpack?” Lin Su asked.

“Oh. Sure. I’ll talk to you tomorrow sometime. I hope you have a good night.”

“I know the staff here,” she said. “I’ve worked with a lot of them. They’ll fix me up with something.”

* * *

On the drive back to Thunder Point Blake asked Scott how well he knew Lin Su.

“Very well. I’ve worked with her for a couple of years. She specializes in home health care, and in the past two years she’s had three patients in end stage cancer and was assisted by an excellent hospice team. When she didn’t have full-time patients she worked at any one of the local hospitals. She’s an outstanding nurse and her ethics are unimpeachable. I know that she moved from the East Coast to Oregon for Charlie’s health—this is a better area for asthma—and attended nursing college in Oregon when Charlie was small. I think she’s been a licensed RN for about ten years.”

“What about her personal life, home life. Does she date? Have family?”

“Why? Are you interested in Lin Su?”

In fact, he could be, but that wasn’t why he had asked. “I’m concerned about Charlie running into trouble again. Both of them, for that matter. Her neighborhood is overrun by thugs. It seems to be a combination of elderly and real rough characters.”

“She lives in a mobile-home park, do I have that right?” Scott asked.

“Let me ask you something—do you consider yourself her friend?”

“We don’t exactly socialize, if that’s what you mean. But she’s friendly with the Bandon hospital staff and since she’s been in Thunder Point some of the other women, including my wife, have gotten to know her a little more on the social side. I trust her. Yes, I would consider her a friend. What are you getting at?”

“‘Mobile-home park’ is putting a dress on a pig—it’s a dump. It’s not that it’s poor, though it is. It’s the whole landscape—down the street from a bar, a no-tell motel and a convenience store that seems to be a clubhouse for hoods. I’ve offered her a couple of bedrooms while she looks for something closer but she’s very suspicious of me.”

“Why would she be?” Scott asked.

“My own damn fault. I befriended her son and I’m pretty sure I came across as critical of her overprotectiveness. Do you think you can come up with something in Thunder Point that’s cheap but decent? Obviously she’s very proud.”

“We have a sketchy neighborhood or two,” Scott said. “For that matter, we’ve had some pretty severe bullying issues the past couple of years. The school personnel and sheriff’s department are all over it, but I’m just saying—changing neighborhoods doesn’t solve all the problems.”

“It can reduce them by half,” Blake said. “Trust me.”

“So, what is it you think I can do?” Scott asked.

“I think you, given your familiarity with the town and your influence with friends and neighbors, can find her something without shaming her in the process. I’d be willing to try but I already offered her space and she didn’t go for it.”

“And I offered to enlist the help of friends in looking around for her and she put me off,” Scott said.

Blake leveled a stare on him. “Do it, anyway.”

* * *

Charlie rested comfortably but Lin Su didn’t. Her heart was heavy and her mind troubled. She had devised the plan to keep him home from Winnie’s and the beach as a punishment for not following her rules. She could justify it, of course—he was coughing and he shouldn’t be around Winnie. But she knew it was manageable, not likely to be a virus and she thought it might cause him to be more careful in the future.

What had Blake meant when he said he knew more about being poor than she would ever learn? Did he have some twisted hope of comforting her by admitting he had come from modest roots? All that statement really meant to her was that he had taken note of their impoverished living conditions. He must certainly wonder—nurses, especially home health care nurses, were well paid. The problem was that Lin Su wasn’t able to work twelve months a year. When she was finished with one patient it might be weeks or months until she had another full-time charge. And in those periods in between, the hospitals weren’t always hiring.

At the end of the day she still did better in home health care than in a clinic or hospital, but it wasn’t enough to pay all the bills and create a family home for herself and Charlie. Charlie had stopped having daytime babysitters only three years ago; babysitting and day care were mighty expensive. She was nearly finished with her college loans and the five-year-old car would be paid for in another year—those two items would add significant cash flow. And the fact that Winnie was providing her a premium health care package worth eight hundred dollars a month was a godsend. Otherwise, Charlie’s one night in the hospital would cost her the earth! The best insurance Lin Su could afford had a high deductible and poor coverage.