“Yeah. But at least you’ve got them. And family is what matters most.” He rubbed my arms and dropped a quick kiss on my lips. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

* * *

After going inside, I made myself go up and knock on Whitney’s door. I couldn’t put off this conversation any longer, as much as I was dreading it. Henry was right—family was what mattered most, and my kids needed me to be the parent with her head on straight. Or at least straightish.

“Yeah?” Whitney called, her voice muffled.

“Can I come in?”

“I guess.” She opened the door a moment later. “What?”

“I need to talk to you.” I entered the room and shut the door behind me.

“About what?”

I sat on the edge of the bed and looked at her heavily made-up eyes, penciled-in brows, and bright pink lips. Beneath it all I saw my baby-faced girl, and my heart ached for her. “About Instagram.”

Immediately I could tell she knew what I meant. She crossed her arms defensively. Stuck out her chin. “What about it?”

“I saw your profile.”

“So take my phone away. Is that what you came up here to do?”

I sighed, leaning back on my hands. “I don’t know, Whit. It doesn’t seem like that would solve the real problem.”

“What’s the real problem?”

“That you lied to me. You hid this from me. I wish you would have come to me and just been honest.”

“Why? You’d have said no. You always say no when I ask about that. You say no without even listening to my reasons.”

I hesitated. Was that true? Had I ever given her a chance to make a case, or had I just refused to consider it because I didn’t trust the rest of the world to treat my child with respect? Was that a parenting success, or was it a fail, because I wasn’t teaching her anything about the world or the way it views girls? Was I protecting her . . . or me?

“And you had an account,” she reminded me. “You posted all the time.”

“Okay, but I am an adult,” I reminded her, “and I’ve stopped posting because I realized how fake it all is. It was making me sad.”

“Well, it makes me happy,” she insisted. “I create a version of me I like better than the real thing.”

“But that’s the whole problem,” I said, realizing that I’d been doing for years exactly what she was doing now—creating a public version of myself that came along with a whole I’m-just-so-happy story that was pure fiction. “Why use it if you’re just going to pretend to be someone you’re not?”

“I’m not pretending anything,” she said hotly. “It’s still me. It’s just a different me. And I don’t get what the big deal is. It’s just my face with makeup on.”