“Trouble?” Feng felt a fire kindle inside. He stared at his aunt. She bit her bottom lip and stared straight ahead. Feng knew she wanted to avoid his gaze, but he didn’t look away. The SUV rolled on for a few hundred yards before she continued. “You said some hurtful things about our people.”

Feng looked to the road ahead. “Not my fault some people can’t let go of the past.”

“Does that mean your mom and dad too?”

The fire flared up. “At least I got to go to school…outside of a mosque, I mean.”

“I’m sorry, Feng.” Liumei shook her head. Feng could see she was weighing different responses. Finally, she spoke. “You weren’t taken to a school—that was a re-education center. They brainwashed you.”

“I would’ve been brainwashed either way.” Feng scowled back down at his phone and swiped. His face softened.

“Remember this?” Feng held up his phone up to reveal a photo of Liumei, more than a decade younger, tears streaked across her face. The poor quality of the photo testified to its age, and that it had been taken from a distance.

“Where’s that from?”

“Remember when you were staying with us? One night you came running back to my parents’ apartment.” Feng tilted the phone back to examine the image. “I heard you slam the door. Then—bam, bam, bam—a loud banging on the other side of it.” He pinch-zoomed the picture slowly. “I snuck out of bed and took this photo.” He angled the screen back to Liumei.

His aunt’s face turned serious. She focused on the road in front of her. “I begged the authorities not to take me.” She shook her head slowly. “Your parents promised to report me if I engaged in any more ‘subversive activities.’ ” She appeared to stare at something far down the road. “I left China the next week.”

“That’s when the trouble started for my parents.” Feng put a quiet punctuation mark on the end of the exchange. He felt his aunt looking at him as he stared out the window, the tires still humming beneath them.

“I remember your name was Aaliyah when I was growing up,” Feng said, turning back to her. “I remember you changed it to Liumei when you were still living with us in Xinjiang.”

His aunt nodded. “I thought I needed to fit in.”

“Maybe you were right,” Feng said softly.

“No, it wasn’t healthy. Pretending to be someone else.”

“You haven’t changed your name back.”

“I’m proud of who I am—of who we are.” Feng noticed a faint hint of desperation audible in his aunt’s voice as she corrected herself. “But once I started school under this name, and got my medical degree, and started to practice…it’s too hard to change it back now.” Feng studied her from the corner of his eye.