Jordan smiled, satisfied. “Thank you! Maybe you’ll be the one teaching Tana better habits.”
“We’re not cancelling,” Tana said as she turned to Daphne. “Jordan doesn’t get to decide. She isn’t the mother.”
Jordan stood away from the table. The red towel slid away from her head to expose wild curls of wet hair.
The older girl’s voice dropped low. “Do you think I enjoy having to be in charge all the time?”
“Actually, I think you do,” Tana said. “Because if Ma was here, she wouldn’t care about some party. She’d be happy one of us has friends.”
Jordan spun away from her sister as she laughed. The sound, a short hollow burst of air, frightened Daphne with its emptiness.
”Because partying with friends all the time really worked out for Ma, right?”
Tana’s tiny hands balled into fists. She took two wide steps towards Jordan and past Daphne. Her voice echoed off the pale walls of the kitchen. “You act like she deserves to be in there!”
The skin along the back of Daphne’s neck crawled and itched.
Jordan stared down, unfazed. “She has a problem, Tana. She needs help. And sometimes I think you do, too.”
A hiss caught in Daphne’s throat. She choked on the action, coughing to cover.
Tana stumbled backwards, as though her sister had physically pushed her. For a moment, her insolence quieted, she seemed shocked back to normal.
Then Tana’s gaze narrowed.
Daphne said in a weak voice, “There’s no need to fight…”
Ignoring or perhaps not hearing Daphne’s plea, Tana shouted at her sister, “You think you know how to fix everyone’s problems, don’t you? You told Aunt Shari that Daphne could live with us and meet nicer people. But you throw a fit because I’m trying to help her with that?”
Jordan’s shoulder hunched as she leered at Tana. “Meeting a few of your friends is not going to solve Daphne’s problems.”
Sharp claws dragged along the fractured ice of Daphne’s mind.
She squeezed her eyes shut tightly. Stay out of it!
A velvet voice filled with bestial instinct whispered, They talk as though we are not even here.