“Have you had breakfast?” Lin Su asked Winnie.

“Yes, of course. Has Charlie?” she asked.

“I ate some sludge they call breakfast at the hospital—it was gross. What have you got?”

“Charlie!” Lin Su admonished.

“Make the boy an egg, Lin Su. I’ll have one, too. Thank God you’re here—everyone is out of sorts without you. We’ll have toast. I’ll have tea and Charlie will have apple juice. Milk will just make him phlegmy, right, Charlie?”

“Right,” he said, pulling his laptop out of his backpack and opening it up. He began clicking away.

“You should try a cup of tea,” Winnie said. “It would be good for you.”

“I’d rather have another asthma attack. Hey, look at this. Average pay for a schoolteacher without a master’s is about forty-two thousand. I don’t think you qualify for Section 8, but if you work at it...”

Troy ruffled Charlie’s hair. “Thanks, bud. Well, now that the first string is on the field, I think I’ll go to the shop and see if Grace needs me. Then set up my classroom for Monday.”

“Is time for walking the town,” Mikhail said. “Thank God!”

Troy headed for the garage to take his Jeep to town while the old Russian went in the direction of the beach to begin his day of wandering. Winnie and Charlie began entertaining themselves with whatever his interest of the day was on his laptop.

With a sigh, Lin Su took to the kitchen.

Ten minutes later she delivered two trays to the living room—each held an egg and toast, on one a cup of Winnie’s favored tea and on Charlie’s tray apple juice. While they ate, Lin Su checked out the bedroom and bathroom. With no nurse or housekeeper to start out the morning, things were a little upside down. She muttered about the lazy men under her breath as she straightened the bedding, folded clothes, cleaned up the bathroom, started a load of wash. Though it only took her ten minutes, she wondered that no one could even attempt order in her absence.

When she got back to the living room the trays with dirty dishes were sitting on the coffee table and Charlie and Winnie were gone. She spotted them on the deck, just as Charlie was helping Winnie to her chair. Aeiiiieee! she thought, holding her tongue, her hand against her heart. She tried to remain calm as she followed them. Talk about the blind leading the blind! A weakened asthmatic boy and a woman with ALS whose balance was horrible at best and her strength flimsy.

“Just what are you doing?” she asked her son. “Why didn’t you call me?”

“I told him not to,” Winnie said. “Really, I think I must have one of those atrocious walker things. God, I hate them! But I hate landing on my ass more! Lin Su, I want you to go fix yourself two eggs, toast and maybe some meat—there’s that microwave bacon or turkey sausage in the fridge. Troy eats both like candy. Then I want you to go to the guest room and lie down for an hour. You’re cranky and you have dark circles under your eyes.”

“I’m fine. I...”

“I didn’t ask if you were fine. I told you to eat and rest. I’m not breaking in another nurse and I want life back to normal.”

“I’m not hungry, thank you.”

“Charlie said you haven’t eaten and I know you haven’t slept. Go. Now. We’re going to look up some things.”

“No moving around until I’m back,” she ordered. “Charlie is not trained in assisting patients.”

Lin Su pursed her lips in an angry line, but neither of them bothered to look at her. She went to the kitchen and in exactly four minutes she had scrambled and eaten two eggs and a half slice of toast. Screw the bacon, she thought rebelliously. She went to the guest room, angry at being told what to do. She slipped off her shoes. Her eyes got a little teary as she lay down, flat on her back, hands folded over her waist. I am not tired, she thought furiously.

* * *

Lin Su awoke with a start, heart pounding, the sound of laughter coming from the other room. She jumped up, slipped into her clogs and rushed into the living room. There were Grace, Blake, Scott Grant, Winnie and, on the floor with his laptop balanced on his crossed legs, Charlie. A soiree. While she slept.

“Oh, I’m sorry, Lin Su,” Grace said. “We were being quiet!”

“No, we weren’t,” Scott said. “But we meant to be. I just stopped by to check on Winnie and Charlie, both of whom are well enough.”

“I came over to get the latest on Charlie, but seeing your car...” Blake said.

“And Troy took over at the shop for a couple of hours so I could come home and ask Mother if she needed anything. I’m glad you had a little rest,” Grace said.

“I wasn’t tired,” Lin Su insisted.

They all laughed and she looked at her watch. “Oh, God,” she said, dropping her gaze to the floor. She had slept for three hours! Lunch! She’d missed lunch! “I’m so sorry. You must be starving, Winnie!”

“No, you will be starving. We’ve eaten. Charlie made sandwiches for us. Except for Blake, who eats tree bark, seaweed and unborn animals.”

“It’s not as bad as that,” he said with a laugh.

“What you eat actually sounds worse,” Winnie said. “You had a very good rest, my dear. How you thought you weren’t exhausted is a mystery.”

“I didn’t realize...”

But her son narrowed his eyes at her. He didn’t like that she never expressed a need or weakness.

“You were right, I was a little tired,” she relented.

“I’m accustomed to being right about everything. Ask my daughter. Now fix yourself something to eat and join us. There’s gossip. Grace can tell you all about her former assistant, Ginger, who fell in love with a Basque farmer and ran away to his farm to marry him.”

“I’m going to get back to the clinic,” Scott said. “I know this story—I married a Basque woman. Same family. Charlie, you have my number. You know you can call me anytime. If your meds run out or aren’t doing the trick...”

“Yeah, thanks, Doc. I got it.”

“Lin Su, when you have some time, let’s have a conversation about running a few routine lung function tests on Charlie as a follow-up,” Scott said. “We should do an assessment of his progress or the lack. Just give me a call.”

“Absolutely,” she said. “Thank you.”

Lin Su went to the kitchen to make herself a half sandwich. Because the house had an open floor plan, she had no trouble hearing the story. She knew most of it, anyway, if not the finer details. She’d been on the scene since June. That’s when Grace and Troy got married; Grace had a little bun in the oven already and her assistant, Ginger, helped set up all the flowers for the wedding. The person who hadn’t gotten all the details was Winnie, who was lapping them up.

“When Ginger thought Matt was taking her for granted, not calling her back when he said he would, she just changed her number. That got his attention. After that it was almost smooth sailing until Ginger insisted that Matt confront his own failed marriage and make peace with his ex-wife, who he hated.”

“Your father had an ex-wife he hated,” Winnie said. “We had no conflict with that. I hated her, too.”