The youngest of seven hyperachieving children of a Vietnamese shrimper in Kemah, she had been born in exile on the South China Sea, her mother going into frightened labor shortly after their refugee boat was boarded by pirates.
On the distant Kemah bridge, where the lake merged into Galveston Bay, a procession of cars glinted in the sun, and a smallish flock of pink spoonbills meandered in from the opposite shore, heading past the Hilton toward the marshy channels and bayous beyond Bay Area Boulevard.