Dear Eric: I am the oldest of four sisters. Let’s call the others Bea, Claire and Dina.

Bea is challenging. Since early childhood, she has lied and compulsively schemed to get her way. She perpetually makes bad choices. She had sex with Dina’s husband; she stole some things from our mother’s house the night she died; she drunk-calls people. And she has perpetrated dozens of small, vindictive tricks against Claire (for whatever reason, Claire receives most of her ire).

She can be quite pleasant in small doses, mind you. But then at other times, she’ll snap, be mean or do something underhanded when you least expect it, so that it’s all just very tiring.

We don’t call her out on anything she does. It just doesn’t seem worth it when we know she’ll just lie about it.

A few months ago, Bea

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