“And tell me, did you have a celebration?”

“Yes,” he said. “We went out to dinner and I had presents. A couple of apps for my phone. Clothes for summer and stuff like that.”

“This is a belated birthday present.”

“Winnie,” Lin Su said. “It’s too much. Charlie has school.”

“We won’t go for a week,” Winnie said. “Just a few days. We’ll have a wonderful time. Of course we can’t count on Blake until he’s recovered from his race, but that won’t keep us from having a good time. And Charlie will learn some important things.”

“We might distract Blake,” Lin Su said. “We might distract him and do more harm than good. I know your heart is in the right place but remember what he said—he plans to the second. He’s not flexible when it comes to his performance. It would be a bad idea. Grace is right—a small celebration when he gets home is better.”

“Bull,” Winnie said. “We’re going.”

“No!” Lin Su said. She took a breath. “If you insist I go, maybe Troy can keep an eye on Charlie while...”

“We’re going,” Winnie said. “I’ll speak to Blake to be sure we won’t be an inconvenience, to be sure he isn’t distracted by us. You, me and Mikhail and Charlie.”

“Ah. Madam has included me,” Mikhail said, lifting his drink to his lips.

“No,” Lin Su said. “I have to put my foot down. It’s extreme and indulgent.”

“Ma,” Charlie said. “Come on!”

Lin Su jerked her head sharply in her son’s direction and said something harsh and adamant. The only trouble...it wasn’t in a language anyone understood.

It silenced the table again.

“That was interesting,” Troy said. “You get that, Charlie?”

“That was another no,” Charlie said. “With swearing.”

“Sleep on it, Lin Su,” Winnie said calmly. “I’ll speak to Blake tomorrow if I can catch him. I’ll make sure he doesn’t veto the idea. If he doesn’t want us there, we’ll think of another excursion. But damn it, I’m in the mood for some tropical weather. And I’d love to see my friend Blake do some damage in Kona.”

* * *

While clearing the table and washing up some dishes, Lin Su appealed to Grace to put a stop to this extravagant and complicated idea.

“You’ve been with us over four months, Lin Su. Does it appear that once Mother gets an idea, you can talk her out of it? And didn’t you say in your interview that travel wasn’t out of the question as long as you had time to prepare?”

“You said it wasn’t likely, that’s why I didn’t mention Charlie at the time. I don’t want Charlie to get the idea people will be giving him things like trips to Hawaii! In the long run, it won’t do him any good. Ever since coming here to work for Winnie, things have been handed to us left and right, from the new school to the loft! A trip to Hawaii is so...so... It’s just huge, that’s all.”

“It’s actually a nice idea,” Grace said. “Listen, I’d intervene for you if she started going completely crazy and suggested taking Charlie out of school for long tours out of the country, but a few days in Hawaii to watch his best friend race?” Grace shrugged. “That’s actually nice of Mother. She is, under all her bossiness, a very generous person.”

So she appealed to Winnie, suggesting spoiling the boy would make his life more difficult in the end.

“As hard as he’s worked?” Winnie asked. “He should be so proud of himself. He’s been completely dedicated. Stop worrying so much—it’s a few days and we’ll have a nice time.”

“He shouldn’t get any more attached to Blake,” Lin Su said.

“You’re too late, my dear. He’s already attached. To Blake and to all of us. Just as we’re attached to him.”

She knew this in her heart. It was true. They were all good friends now, though she tried to keep things in perspective. Charlie had always known people she worked with and for, but this took it to the next level. They were almost a family and she was very grateful. What she didn’t want was for Charlie to feel what she’d felt when that family that she counted on, her adoptive parents and sisters, abandoned her, as if they’d never been family at all.

She had tried to protect him from everything. She hadn’t been able to so far.

“Have you ever been to a luau, Lin Su?”

She had. And she’d been younger than Charlie.

When Lin Su was a girl she’d been on some mighty nice trips. Her parents were well-to-do and they spent a couple of weeks in Saint Thomas every winter; Boston was brutal in the winter. They had a place at the cape for summers. She’d been to Maui with the family twice—Karyn’s second wedding was held there. They also traveled to Europe a few times. Lin Su also went to Europe with her high school class—Italy, France, Spain. She’d had good experiences even if she hadn’t thoroughly enjoyed the company of her parents. Well, they didn’t happen to be especially enjoyable people. Gordon was only interested in golfing, drinking, living it up with his cronies. Marilyn, focused on status, was more interested in the wives of those cronies.

Lin Su had fun—all the cronies and wives had kids and she went to school with many of them. Then along came Jake in her senior year and those little family trips improved tremendously. Her parents were more than thrilled to invite him along—both to keep her out of their hair and to impress his parents.

Charlie, however, had never been anywhere except the emergency room from time to time. And while they always seemed to be moving, scraping to hold things together, worrying about where they’d land next, he had never complained. Why shouldn’t he be lucky for once? Fly to the islands, watch his idol race?

But it wasn’t just Charlie she hoped to protect. Lin Su grew to like Blake more every day. There wasn’t an admirable quality he lacked and she didn’t want to long for him, to long for a life she would never have. She pretended she didn’t want Charlie to be let down when Blake turned out to be human. She feared being vulnerable to his touch, his kindness, his devotion to her son; she feared the dark pain of rejection. Ordinarily such fears would be easy for her to mask but Lin Su had strong memories of frolicking on the beach with her teenage lover, Charlie’s father, Jake. What more poignant way was there than that vivid memory to remind her that her life would be forever ruined if she let herself be drawn into that sort of romantic idealism again? Charlie was just a kid. She had been just a kid.

After Winnie was settled, Lin Su walked with Charlie along the beach road to the loft. “Soon it will be too cold for this walk,” she said.

“I want to go,” Charlie said. “I want to see him race. I want to take a trip. On a plane.”

“You’ve been on a plane,” she said.

“Not recently enough for me to remember,” he reminded her. “You can forbid it, I know. You can refuse and even force Winnie to get a nurse who goes along with what she wants, but that would be so stupid because Winnie makes your life easier than anyone ever has.”

“That’s not why I took the job,” Lin Su said. “The pay is good. She provides benefits we need!”