Content Warning: This section references death.

The Grand Canyon represents the widening gap between Halley’s childhood and adolescence. This canyon creates distance in Halley’s relationship with her parents as well as her relationship with the person she used to be as she explores her identity. At the beginning of this pivotal summer in Halley’s life, she and her parents take a trip to the Grand Canyon and take a photo together. This photograph now sits on her parents’ mantel, and Halley’s mother keeps the photo displayed as a sort of memorial to what their relationship used to be: “It was like she knew, somehow, that it would be a relic just months later, proof of another time and place neither of us could imagine had existed: my mother and I, best friends, posing at the Grand Canyon” (19). The photograph represents the last time Halley felt truly close to her parents because she began growing distant from them as soon as they returned home from that trip. Thus, the Grand Canyon becomes a symbol of a “vast and uncrossable” distance between Halley and her parents (171).

As her relationship with Macon progresses, Halley feels a widening gap between not only herself and her parents but also the girl she is becoming and “the perfect daughter [she]’d been in that Grand Canyon picture” (66).