Free The Space Between Us by Jessica Martinez

the man, and the nanny they forgot to push out of the shot before the picture was taken.
    At the photo’s edge, a ten-year-old girl with shiny platinum hair and a pointy chin has the only smile. Bree. It’s her half sister’s funeral, but she obviously doesn’t know you’re not always supposed to smile for the camera. She’s wearing wire-rimmed glasses, which for years made me think she was a child genius. She would have to be twenty-six now.
    Relief trickled down my spine. Canada. Why didn’t I think of that? Charly can live with Aunt Bree and Dad will never find out.
    “I spoke to Bree last night and she said you could stay with her in Banff until you have the baby. The adoption will take place up there.”
    “But . . . ,” Charly stammered. “But she doesn’t even know me. I don’t even know her.”
    It was as if she hadn’t spoken. Grandma was brokering a business transaction. Deals had been made. Goods would be exchanged.
    “You already called her? What if I want to stay here? What if . . . ”
    Grandma glared at Charly, and for a moment I thought the dam was going to burst. I could see Charly bracing for it too. There had to be a world of anger bubbling behind that somber front, but Grandma shook her head and spoke just as calmly as before.
    “Charlotte, you’re confused. You use the words I want like they still mean something. You’re pregnant. You made that choice, thinking only about what you wanted at the moment. Now what you want is irrelevant.”
    Charly shrank into her chair. The last few green Froot Loops bobbed around in the milk, looking spongy and anemic.
    “You’re acting like I’m about to explode,” Grandma said evenly as Charly cowered. “Relax. I’m not going to yell at you. It’s too late. Discipline has failed.”
    I poured the last of my orange juice down the sink. I didn’t want to be here for this anymore.
    “Sending you to Canada is the only way we can survive this without your father finding out.”
    “He’d never forgive me,” Charly said, still staring into her milk.
    She was right, but I wasn’t so sure she deserved forgiveness.
    “I’ll go,” she said.
    “But what are you going to tell him?” I asked Grandma.
    “That you girls are flying up north to get better acquainted with your aunt. That it’s important for teenage girls to connect with their mother, even if it can only be through her relatives. That you’ll attend an excellent school up there.”
    I didn’t hear a word after you girls . “Charly, you mean.”
    “No. I mean you girls. You’ll go with your sister.”
    “What?” Panic twisted every muscle in my body. “Why?”
    “Stop shouting.”
    “I’m not shouting!” I shouted.
    “Calm down.” Grandma pointed to the chair next to Charly, but I shook my head.
    “I’m not the pregnant one! I don’t need to sit!” I thought I’d been exhausted from practice, but I suddenly had an urgent desire to run.
    “Fine, then. Stand there and listen. You need to go to Canada too or this story will have no credibility. A girl going to visit a relative for half a year means one thing and one thing only to some people.”
    “Maybe in the 1960s,” I argued, realizing as I said itthat Tremonton was probably at least fifty years behind the rest of America.
    “People will wonder, then gossip, then assume it as truth—all of it, if Charly goes alone. If you both go, you especially, if you go, nobody will think that.”
    She meant it as a compliment, but it didn’t feel that way. Nobody in this town would imagine I could possibly get pregnant. Probably not even if I was still with Will. “And this is my reward for being good, then? Being sent away just in case people start to wonder about Charly?”
    “Your dad would never let Charly go on her own.”
    I exhaled, feeling every ounce of breath leave me. “But he . . . ” But he nothing. She was right. I met Grandma’s eyes and saw a faint softness behind them.
    “Amelia. You have to take care