Fiction Friday: Carolina

Della is the kind-of person who will theme name her kids; you know, all flowers or spices or something ridiculous like that. There will be little Sage, and Saffron, and Sorrel. And they’ll all be in matching smocks with knee highs and Mary Janes. Just the thought of it makes me wants to barf, but if I mentioned it to her she’d probably smile sweetly and exclaim, “What a wonderful idea, Carrie!”

Perhaps it’s not completely her fault, seeing as we are all named after US States. I still cannot understand how dad agreed to it. He was probably on some bender and thought it was hilarious, some little joke my mother was playing, but he really should have known better, even falling down drunk. Mom doesn’t make jokes, she’s far to earnest, although mostly she comes across an airheaded wacko -- the kind of person you suspect of being on a very large dose of Prozac, only she isn’t.

Della’s like that too, so some cotton-candy day dream about her very own spice girls is par for the course. Me? I didn’t get the natural-antidepressant gene; nor did my brother. Hell, Dakota’s been a fuck up since he was able to walk.