Chapter 10: Against the Door

Bai Ling had learned to send messages on Meiyin's old phone, and all day long they arrived in the middle of meetings.

At 10:12 a.m. the message said, "Is it still Monday?"

At 1:40 p.m., "There is a bird at the window who does not respect the glass."

At 4:05, "Mistress, when do you come home?"

At 9:30 p.m. Meiyin sat in the back of the car on the long dark road to Qingpu.

Her skirt suit was rumpled and her feet ached in black heels.

The screen lit up one last time.

"I have put on your white shirt.

I have done nothing else.

I am waiting by the door."

Meiyin read it three times.

She put the phone face down on her knee, and looked out the window at the black fields, and felt her pulse in her throat.

Tang Fei, in the front seat, glanced at her in the mirror.

"Everything okay, Ms. Gu?"

"Fine."

"You're smiling."

"I'm not."

"You are, though," Tang Fei said, in a very small voice, and went back to watching the road.

They reached the stone gate at ten past eleven.

Tang Fei carried a cardboard box from the trunk to the front step, and put it down by the door.

"From the storage unit," she said.

"The one you asked for, with your mother's things.

It's heavy."

"Thank you.

Go home, Tang Fei."

"Yes, Ms. Gu."

Tang Fei drove away without looking back at the house.

Meiyin pushed the front door open.

The hall was dark.

The only light was the amber lamp at the foot of the stairs, and Bai Ling knelt in the middle of the rug beneath it.

She wore Meiyin's white silk shirt.

It fell to the tops of her thighs, unbuttoned, the cuffs rolled to her elbows.

Underneath she was bare.

Her black hair lay over her shoulders and her hands were folded in her lap.

Her head was bowed.

"You're late," she said softly.

"I am sorry."

"I am not sorry at all."

Meiyin shut the door behind her.

She set the box against the wall.

She did not take off her black heels, or her jacket, or her skirt.

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