Read the excerpt from The Red Umbrella by Christina Diaz Gonzalez."I’m sorry. Can’t Frankie and I stay together?”George looked at me in the rearview mirror. "Once we find you a foster family, then maybe. But you have to remember, your parents sent you here for a reason. Now it’s up to you to make them proud. You have to be strong.”Be strong. That’s what Papá had told me before I left. But he also said to take care of Frankie.

The passage shows the narrator and Frankie facing the painful possibility of being separated after their parents sent them away. George encourages the narrator to be strong and make their parents proud, while the narrator remembers a promise to care for Frankie. This supports the idea that people sometimes endure difficult experiences in hopes of a better life. Choice C expresses that idea; the passage does not say that living apart is easier or that everything happens for a reason.

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