The Conditions of Will

Is there a good way to find out bad news? I guess, probably yes? Just…regular, I suppose—nothing scarring or dramatic.

My sister has been calling me around the clock for about a day and a half, and I haven’t been answering her calls because I never answer Maryanne’s calls because she has an undiagnosed narcissistic personality disorder and also, she’s a bitch, and also, I just don’t answer her calls. Not that she calls particularly often, but if and when she does, they mostly always go unanswered.

Now, admittedly, half of the reason I don’t answer them is because I know that it gnaws away at her—every time the phone rings out, her eyebrows would lower, her eyes would pinch a little, and her jaw would jut forward as her bottom teeth touch her top ones, quietly seething. If she was trying to call me in front of anyone else, she’d just flick her eyes with a demure little roll and tell them I’m impossible sometimes, but if she were by herself, a puff of air would escape her flared nostrils. She’d give her head a slight shake and her chest would go tight because Maryanne Joy Carter cannot not be in control of a situation.

Me, my brothers, and my sister are victims of that God-awful trend Pentecostal parents all seemed to fall into the trap of in the nineties. You know—the naming their children after Christian-adjacent words? I never tell anyone my full name because my middle name feels like a smear on my forehead that tells the world where I’m from, and I don’t want to think about where I’m from, but here it is: