“I have no idea how I’m supposed to do that,” she complained. “I’m working, and he’s in school all day...”

“Stop,” Scott said. “Charlie can have a better experience, a safer life. There are Olympic athletes with asthma. They control it with medication and training. Charlie can...”

“Oh, it’s him!” she said. “This is his idea!”

“Whose?” Scott asked.

“Blake Smiley! That first day Charlie rode his bike and got severely short of breath, Blake told him to research famous athletes with asthma! This is his idea! Why doesn’t he stay out of my business?”

Scott frowned. “It wasn’t Blake’s idea, as a matter of fact, but if it had been I would have agreed. I know Charlie and his asthma is the center of your universe but we have many patients who have to be rehabbed, build their strength again to avoid relapse—heart patients, patients with muscle and bone repairs, transplant patients. I guarantee if you sit in front of a TV for two years, even you will have to start over with rehab to get back in shape. Charlie needs to be stronger. And if you have trouble figuring out a plan, Winnie’s house sits between two professional trainers—Blake and Spencer. Spencer is the athletic director at the high school and I volunteer as his football team doctor. Either one of them would help you develop a program for Charlie. You could consider it professional help.”

“Will you be monitoring this program, as well?” she asked.

“I’ll always be around. I’ll continue to look in on Winnie every week and if you’d like I can try to time my visits for afternoon, when school is out.”

“That might help. Let me read about this a little,” she said, holding out her hand for the pamphlet.

“Read about it. And maybe talk to either Blake or Spencer about beginning a training protocol for a kid who hasn’t been active all this life.”

“Sure,” she said. “Thanks.”

“You’re not losing control, Lin Su. You’re helping to manage a chronic condition.”

Somehow that wasn’t how it felt. “I understand,” she said.

* * *

Sunday morning Charlie saw Blake go out on his deck with his bike, pick it up and carry it down the stairs to the beach and lean it against the stair rail to put on his helmet. When he looked around, Charlie waved.

Perfect. Blake would be gone at least two hours, probably more. His mother was in Winnie’s bedroom. The door was ajar, which meant they weren’t doing anything too serious—probably some exercises or morning tidying. She expected him to keep himself quiet and busy. He grabbed his laptop and slipped out onto the deck and down the stairs.

Since he had to leave his laptop home and was always in very close company with his mother and others after school, his espionage was really suffering. Besides that, Lin Su was seriously researching something about asthma on the laptop when he wasn’t using it. Whatever she was learning was bound to restrict his activities—that was always the end result.

He walked down the beach stairs about halfway. Troy and Grace were in their little apartment, windows open to admit the cool fall air, so he went to Blake’s house. He went up the stairs almost to the top and sat down. He didn’t have to be out of sight, but he didn’t want his mother or anyone sneaking up on him. What he was doing took time and concentration. He flipped open the computer and logged on.

Charlie had already established a free email address with a password his mother would never guess. When he researched public records and other sites, like Finding Your Vietnamese Family, he always cleared his cache so if his mother checked his browsing history, it wouldn’t show up. He’d also set up a phony Facebook page with some picture he’d lifted off the internet and a name she wouldn’t recognize. He’d sent an email to Gordon Simmons, his adoptive grandfather, but had not received a response. Gordon would be at least seventy now and he certainly hadn’t turned up on Facebook.

But his younger daughter had. Leigh Simmons, college professor at Rutgers, was apparently beloved by current and former students. She was also on sabbatical for the fall semester. He’d tried to “friend” her, but he couldn’t reel her in—she didn’t know him. Or maybe she wasn’t paying much attention to her Facebook page while she was away. He’d sent her a message, which he understood would probably be lost in a buried file or ignored. He’d sent it to the faculty email address on their website.

Dear Leigh Simmons, my name is Charlie and I think my mother, Lin Su, could be your adopted sister. She was adopted when she was three, is Vietnamese and Caucasian American. She left home at eighteen. Do we have a connection?

An answer came back right away.

I’m sorry I missed your email. I’m traveling on sabbatical until late October and will only have limited access to email. If you need information directly, please contact my assistant...

He hadn’t bothered the assistant and hadn’t heard back from Leigh, of course. He was surfing the internet in search of old family pictures or news from the Simmons family. From newspaper clippings he’d learned that his grandparents divorced shortly after he was born and found pictures of Leigh Simmons in yearbooks and newspapers—her work in anthropology and writing on international human rights was apparently lauded. Even if she turned out not to be an adopted relative, she sounded like someone he’d like to meet.

“Looking at porn?”

Charlie almost jumped out of his skin and slammed the laptop shut. Blake was standing right behind him. He was helmetless now and in his stocking feet, eating an apple with one hand and holding a plastic bag of fruit in the other.

“Jeez, you are looking at porn!” Blake said.

“No, I’m not!”

“Well, then, what’s up? You panicked just then.”

“Never mind,” Charlie said. “What are you doing sneaking up on people like that?”

“Aren’t you on my property? Not that I mind, but Jesus, cut me a break. I’m not exactly spying on you.”

“What are you doing here? I saw you leave!”

He held up the apples. “I rode to the orchard on the other side of 101. The fruit stand.” He sat down next to Charlie. He fished an apple out of the bag and handed it to him. “Whatcha doin’?”

“Nothing,” he said, taking the apple.