“Charlie, I don’t want you...”

“Charlie, do you have any major plans for that laptop of yours for tonight?” Blake asked, cutting her off.

Charlie shrugged. “No, why?”

“I think you should research famous athletes with asthma,” Blake said. “You’ll run across some familiar names and get some good ideas.”

* * *

Charlie coughed on and off through the rest of the afternoon and because of that Grace offered to settle her mother in for the night so Lin Su could take her son home. On the way home she lightly berated him. “You shouldn’t have taken the hard ride. A long walk or a ride on a paddleboard is one thing—a burst of exercise could haunt you.”

“It’s not an asthma attack. Trust me, I’d know.” He coughed again. “It’ll pass.”

“We’ll do a breathing treatment,” she said.

“I’ll do it,” Charlie said. “I just wish you liked him. Because he’s a good guy.”

“Mr. Smiley?” she asked, though of course she knew. “I like him fine. He was being very neighborly, loaning you the bike for a ride. But he didn’t know about the asthma. That’s your responsibility, Charlie.”

“Then let me have it,” he said tersely.

Mr. Smiley, she found herself thinking, is going to be a problem. He was encouraging this free thinking, letting Charlie learn from his consequences, and he didn’t understand that in Charlie’s case the consequences could be fatal.

Well, probably not, she relented. Worst case, a manageable asthma attack, relieved by a nebulizer and maybe some oxygen. But she was suddenly desperate that Charlie listen first to her.

“It’s not going to kill me, you know,” Charlie said as if reading her mind. “Sometimes I have a little breathing thing, not very often. I haven’t had one of these in a long time.”

“May,” she said. “When everything was in bloom. And it got a little dicey.”

“Because it turned into a cold. This could be just a cold, you know. I felt a little stuffy before I took the bike out.”

Lin Su said nothing as she drove. But she counted his coughs, which had become deep and gravelly. He wasn’t wheezing. Yet. They were almost home when she said, “I don’t appreciate your attitude toward me, as if I’m somehow punishing you. I’m going to make you some soup while you take a hot shower with lots of steam. Then you come out, eat soup and give the water heater time to heat up again and get back in the steam. After that we’ll do a breathing treatment. How many times have you used the inhaler?”

“Just twice.”

“Let’s see if we can nip this in the bud, okay, Charlie?”

He nodded. “Sorry, Mom. The bike was so awesome.”

“I know, honey.” She wanted to carry on about the use of some discretion to keep this asthma in check but she knew he’d heard enough. And maybe Mr. Smiley was partially right—he might learn more this way, from the consequences, than from her harping. He’d heard it all before. But damned if she’d ever admit that.

They carried out the plan—shower, soup, shower, treatment. After all that, he started to sniff a little and she hoped it was a little cold rather than an attack, even though that presented a different set of problems. If these symptoms persisted it would be wrong to take him back to Winnie’s. She shouldn’t be exposed to germs if it could be avoided. With all the people in and through Winnie’s house it was risky enough—her nurse couldn’t bring a known virus into the patient’s home.

Then she had a slightly evil thought. It would serve him right to have to spend a day at home as a result of his less than responsible actions, even though she knew it wasn’t possible for a bike ride to bring on a cold. He should learn to listen to her. So you want it to be a cold, Charlie, and not your overtaxed weak lungs—a cold, it is. And you have to stay home. Away from your playmates for a day.

Lin Su heard every cough through the night. It wasn’t too bad—it wasn’t getting worse, he had no fever, it was a productive cough and he wasn’t wheezing. She gave him another breathing treatment first thing in the morning, checked his temperature, then double-checked with her lips on his forehead. “I think you’re going to be fine. But it’s the responsible thing to leave you home today. I don’t want Winnie and the rest of the family to hear that coughing and get anxious about germs. You understand.”

“Yeah, okay. But will you please tell everyone I’m fine? That I’m not having any kind of attack or anything?”

“Of course. I’ll explain it’s just a precaution for Winnie’s health in case you’re coming down with a cold. Will that do?”

“Yeah. It’s just that... If Blake thinks the bike did it, he’ll never let me try it out again.”

Lin Su doubted that. Actually, she feared that. Blake was coming across as a challenge, as the guy who wanted to let Charlie be a man about it. Her poor little bubble boy—she wouldn’t want to have to live like that, either. But God, what if something terrible happened? And it could—his fragile lungs, his intense allergies, his stressed immune system... “Of course we’ll play the cold card here. And if you get another chance on that bike or any bike, let’s decide here and now that you’re not going to check it for maximum speed. Can we agree to that?”

“That bike is so slick, Mom. No wonder it cost a billion dollars!”

Lin Su sat on the edge of his bed. “Charlie, your health has been good lately. Keep it so. Build up some stamina, get strong, live long. Use that remarkable brain of yours to get ahead and buy a dozen billion-dollar bicycles when you’ve overcome the worst of this. But go slow.”

He grinned. “You just want me to live a long time so you have some rich guy to take care of you in your old age.”

“I’m counting on it,” she said. “I’ll text and call. Try to take it easy today. I’m sure by tomorrow you’ll be fine.”

This was the lot of a single mother—making a choice between her job, which was vital, and her sick child, the core of her being. If he were younger than fourteen she might have asked one of the elderly neighbors to watch him or at least check on him, but at fourteen Charlie would be offended. Hell, at eleven he was offended! He knew the rules, he was responsible. Still...she wanted to be near...