Drifting clouds sheltered the sun, and the breeze was cool on her face. She’d used Yao’s illicit dollars for a flight from Hong Kong to Washington, changing in Chicago, and booked a cheap hotel off Connecticut Avenue. Now, for the first time in days, the muscle ache in her shoulders had eased. For the moment, she’d escaped the humidity and terror of Guangdong. This was how freedom felt. She’d never been to the United States, although it was common among her university friends. The older generation were lost in wonder at how easily people of her age traveled. One graduate of Sun Yat-sen had gone to study at Georgetown, others to Yale and Stanford. Their wealthy parents had paid the fees without blinking—nothing was too much for one child. But Mei had fought so hard to get what she wanted that she would not do anything to risk it. Let others travel the world and return to jobs that had been saved for them. She didn’t have that luxury. Walking off at Reagan National, she’d been met by nothing but an anonymous terminal with a few outlets—Starbucks, Hudson News.
