“Bullshit. You got Mae. I got Kathryn.” Julia couldn’t keep the bitterness from her voice.
“Has that been building up over the years?” Dani taunted. “What? Are you bothered you didn’t get both aunts?”
“This is ridiculous!” Julia hissed. “We are adults, and we are above this.”
“No, we’re not. We’re sisters.”
“You’re irrational—” Julia started to chide her sister, but Dani cut her off, “Kinda like needing to leave a party so you can obsessively mop the kitchen floor at midnight because it wasn’t mopped enough earlier in the day? Irrational like that?”
Julia sucked in her breath—again.
Jake groaned. “Oh no.”
Julia’s eyes flashed a warning. “Excuse me?”
Dani shook her head. “I’m not going to excuse you. You have to have everything in perfect order. You have to feel needed, all the time. You were like that growing up. I’ve no doubt you’re like that now. I bet Kathryn doesn’t need you to remind her to take her pills. She’s got her own alarms set to remind herself to take those pills.”
“Dani.”
She whipped her head to regard Jake. “What? What cardinal sin have I committed now?!”
Jake murmured quietly, “Kathryn’s dying. We got the news this past week.”
This past week—when Jake was schmoozing with Boone and his family, when Julia was suddenly friends with Boone’s new girlfriend.
Dani snorted, hardening over an ache inside of her. “Let me guess. You were never going to tell me. Were you?”
She waited.
Nothing.
Silence.
She got her answer. “I see.”
Julia was seething. “You said it yourself. She’s my family, not yours.”
“You did, too. Your words, too, Julia. You got Kathryn. I got Mae, the only difference is that I lived with her, and she turned you and Erica against me. She chose to love you and Erica, but she never loved me.”
“Kathryn told me about her agreement with Mae. Mae got you, and Kathryn got us. It was agreed upon, but Mae took forever to get her life in order, so Kathryn took care of you. You should be grateful—”
“Of what?”
“Jake—” Kate coughed from behind them. “Maybe you and I should go and start up another poker game.”
Jake glanced between the two sisters. “Maybe we should.”
Kate and Jake disappeared, and Dani shot back,”It doesn’t have to be either/or in our family. Why am I the only one who gets that? It never had to be like that.”
Julia quieted, but her neck was red.
“You wanna know where that even came from?” Dani cried out. “From our mother.”
“Don’t talk about her. She doesn’t deserve to have her memory dragged through the mud.”
“She visited Sandra O’Hara. It was our grandmother who told her what to do, to even talk to Mae about having me.” Dani’s laugh was empty, even to her own ears. “She took advice from a crazy woman. Okay. She’s more broken than crazy, but still crazy. Stubborn, too.”
“Grandmom is dead. Kathryn told us that.”
“No.” She really wasn’t. Dani shook her head. “I’ve seen her three times now.”
Julia jerked backwards and held her hands up. She was shaking her head. “I can’t do this, not now. I can’t—” She choked off her words. The fight left her. Her shoulders dropped down. Her head hung low. Her hands fell back to her side.
“Did you know that our grandfather was married?” Dani kept going. Maybe it was because she wanted to stick it to her sister that she knew more than the all-knowing Julia did. Maybe it was because her sister liked to stick her head in the sand, but she couldn’t this time. There was evidence. People were still living. Julia wouldn’t be able to deny them away. Or maybe she was saying all this because she was sick of being the only one to hold it? Maybe it was time they stopped perpetuating the cycle?
“Stop it, Dani!” Her head flared back up. Her eyes were wide with panic. “I can’t listen to this right now. Not when—Kathryn is dying. She needs me.” She rushed back inside, the door slamming shut behind her.
Dani was left alone, a flamingo perched on her head.
“Hey.”
She turned around and saw Jonah perched on the steps. “Hey.” She touched the flamingo. “I thought for a second Fancy Nancy came alive, or I’ve embraced the crazy gene in my family and started to hear voices.”
Jonah chuckled dryly as he moved up the stairs and leaned next to her. He hoisted himself up on the railing, then lifted Dani to sit next to him. His hands lingered on her waist before removing his arm around her back. She studied him, seeing the pain in his eyes, the bags under them, and the slight crinkle around his mouth. She didn’t think they looked like they were there from smiling or laughing.
She offered her drink. “You look like you could use this more than me.”
He took it, giving her a half-grin. “Are you sure?” He gestured inside where Julia had gone. “Another one of these and I’m thinking you could go for round two.”
His hands were resting on his lap, so she reached and lifted one, lacing their fingers together. “How’d your thing go with your dad?”
Bullseye.
Jonah’s lip curled upward, amused at some irony that was lost on Dani. “Your fight with your sister was refreshing.” Jonah chuckled again, a twinge of bitterness laced with it. “Beats the superficialness of my family. Aiden just—she lied right through her teeth when we dropped off our dad at Robbie’s. He loved the house, said he’s going to come more often to visit.”