“Thanks for joining us, Bugz…” Liumei paused, appearing unsure what to say next. “Is it alright if I call you that? Or do you prefer I say your full name…Bagon-ay—”

“Bagonegiizhigok,” Bugz said to Liumei from behind her phone. She peeked over the top of her screen and examined Liumei’s face…delicate features, for the most part. She’s pretty, Bugz thought. “But it’s alright if you call me Bugz. It’s what everyone else calls me.”

“Are you sure? You seemed to sit up a little bit straighter when you said your full name to me just now.” Liumei’s attention to detail was sharp. Well, I guess so. She’s a doctor. Liumei continued, “To be honest, I’m still getting used to saying ‘bugs,’ but I’ll get over it.” Feng chuckled.

“Yeah, trust me, kids made a big deal out of it in elementary school,” Bugz said. “They’d always ask if I had bugs, if I wanted Nix, or they’d say my first name must be ‘sheehaz.’ ”

“She-haz?” Feng asked.

“Yeah, they were asking if her full name was ‘She-has-bugz,’ ” Liumei said, plating the food. She gave her nephew a sideways look, as though skeptical of his intelligence for a second. “Listen, Bugz, part of my name translates to ‘willow.’ So I went by ‘Willow’ when I first got here until someone asked if it was ’cause I was skinny.” Liumei shook her head.

Bugz couldn’t help but smile at this. She decided she liked Liumei just a bit more for this confession of their shared experience. “My name means ‘hole-in-the-sky’ or ‘hole-in-the-day.’ ”

“That’s very poetic,” Liumei said.

“Thanks.” Bugz didn’t know where to look. She glanced at her phone. “It was the name of a big chief back in the day. Our great-great-great-great-grandpa. He’s the reason our family is called Holiday. When he registered with the government, they couldn’t get his name right, so they switched ‘Hole-in-the-day’ to ‘Holiday.’ My parents wanted to honor him so they gave me the feminine version of his name.”

“Impressive. So what does the Bug part mean?” Liumei asked.

“Nothing.” Bugz knew she should say more. “It doesn’t mean anything on its own, but it’s part of the word that describes something having a piercing or a hole in it. And then giizhig means ‘sky’ or ‘day’ or ‘cedar’ in our language. Cedar is sacred to us and has a connection to the sky.” Bugz’s eyes darted around the table. “And the sky represents the day.”