But each year on Emma’s birthday, her sister stayed off-line. No one ever mentioned Emma in the lively discussion threads that Bethany hosted. Emma was the ghost at the never-ending cyber-reunion, watching unnoticed, ungreeted. Always and never there.

Her own social media accounts were not in her real name. They weren’t in the name Emma O’Connor either. The profile picture wasn’t a photo of her. She’d learned to use proxy servers to keep even more distance. She watched her family from more than a thousand miles away, with layers of electronic anonymity protecting everyone from her, and her from maybe no one. She could never be sure.

When her sister posted something that generated a conversation—with friends and relatives all having their say in back-and-forths that scrolled down the screen—it felt like a gift. Emma checked the feeds throughout the day, pinging home all the time, though they never knew it, but she saved the longer posts and conversations like a sweet treat, a dessert for after the eating-her-veggies part of the day.

She had the internet and her sketch pads to fill her evenings. And wine. She didn’t bother with the television. It was a showcase of all she couldn’t have in the world, and her jaw hurt if she got clenchy with rage. Beyond that, all the good TV was expensive. The budget bridged the bills, but not with a lot of slack.

Emma had come into town with a little cash for getting settled. She’d had a suitcase full of clothes—more than half with the tags still attached, a laptop, a box of books, and an art case. Her new life fit into the trunk of an uninspiring but reliable used car. The Toyota’s lines seemed modeled on a squashed loaf of sandwich bread, and it was bread-crust brown, too. She used to care about the finer things, including good, not-brown, cars. This one’s engine gave a pouty yowl when she asked too much of it, but it got her around. And most importantly, if things ever went wrong, it would get her out again with the go-bag she’d been told to keep on board at all times. She never let the gas tank run below half-full.

Her cover was that she was an artist escaping an abusive marriage. She hated that story so much she’d surrendered her outgoing nature to keep from telling it. She would only ever break it out to get by in the unavoidable social crossings that required a little history to get through. And she tried to tell it only to men. Women might want to console her or to share their own angers and terrors, and Emma would be left lying way more than she was good at.