This year, everyone was supposed to come to my house for Christmas dinner, but just a few days before, my brother and his wife suddenly showed up, asking to stay with us. Although their visit was unexpected, I didn’t mind—until my sister-in-law pushed me to my limit with her unbelievable antics!
A week before Christmas, my brother Ryan and his wife, Lindsey, arrived at our doorstep, bundled up and looking exhausted. Their heating system had broken down, and with the cold wave sweeping through, their house had become unlivable. Despite my reservations, my husband, Nathan, and I welcomed them in, unaware of the disaster that our kindness would bring.
At first, everything was fine. But by the third day, my sister-in-law’s behavior was starting to wear on me.
She monopolized our main bathroom, leaving damp towels and toiletries scattered everywhere, despite having full access to the guest bathroom. Worse still, I noticed some of my sweaters and other clothes mysteriously migrating into her suitcase—without her even asking to borrow them!
I didn’t want to cause a scene, but I couldn’t help feeling irritated. Yet, none of that compared to what I discovered on Christmas Eve morning.
We were gathered for breakfast when I noticed something strange. The fireplace in the living room, which had been lovingly decorated with garlands and stockings, looked… empty. My heart started pounding.
“Has anyone seen Mom?” I asked, my voice slightly shaky. I was referring to the black marble urn containing my mother’s ashes, which we had placed there to honor her wish to “spend” Christmas with us.
This was supposed to be our first Christmas without Mom, who had passed away after a short battle with cancer. On her deathbed, she had made my brother and me promise to keep her ashes with us in the same room where we celebrated Christmas so she could “be with us one last time.”
After the holiday, my brother and I were supposed to scatter her ashes at her favorite place—the local river where she and our late father had their first date. But now, she was just… gone.
Lindsey looked up from her plate and gave me a casual shrug. “Oh, you mean the ashes? I threw them out in the garden. That vase freaked me out every time I saw it!”
The room went silent. Time seemed to freeze as her words sank in.
“You did WHAT?!” I finally managed to say, my voice rising.
“I threw them out,” she repeated, as if talking about garbage. “Relax, it’s just ashes. Why is everyone so dramatic?”
Fury erupted inside me, and without thinking, I shot up from my chair, ready to lunge at her. Nathan and Ryan quickly stepped between us, holding me back.
“You had no right!” I screamed, tears streaming down my face. “Mom had one wish, and you—how could you?!”
Lindsey rolled her eyes. “It’s not like she would know!”
Her indifference was a slap in the face! Shaking with rage, I stormed out into the backyard, praying it wasn’t too late.
I spent the next hour combing through the grass and sifting through the trash, but there wasn’t much left to recover. My mother’s ashes—her memory—were gone.
That night, I lay awake, fuming. I wanted to kick Lindsey out immediately, but the pleading look in Ryan’s eyes at dinner stopped me.
“Just wait until after Christmas,” he had whispered at one point. “Please, we have nowhere else to go on such short notice.”
I reluctantly agreed, but I wasn’t sure I could last another 24 hours without exploding.
Around midnight, a bloodcurdling scream shattered the silence! Nathan and I jolted awake, exchanging alarmed looks before rushing upstairs. The smell hit us before we even reached Ryan and Lindsey’s bedroom door—a rancid stench that turned my stomach.
“What is that?” my husband muttered, pinching his nose. We burst into the room to find Lindsey standing on the bed, clutching her hair and shrieking hysterically!
The carpet, Lindsey’s clothes, and even some of mine were soaked with murky water, and a nauseating odor seeped from the attached bathroom.
“Oh my God! It’s everywhere! Do something!” my sister-in-law screeched.
Nathan tried to keep a straight face, but I could see the corners of his mouth twitching. “Wow,” he said. “Looks like the toilet overflowed.”
“Why just this room?” I added, unable to suppress a smirk. “The guest bathroom is fine, and ours is working perfectly,” I said, a little too cheerfully.
“It must be some kind of Christmas miracle,” my husband joked, earning a death glare from my brother’s now-livid wife.
My brother crouched near the bathroom door, desperately trying to mop up the mess with a towel. “Honey, maybe we should—”
“Don’t you dare ‘honey’ me!” Lindsey snapped. “Do something useful for once!”
I couldn’t resist twisting the knife. “Maybe it’s karma,” I said, leaning against the doorframe. “You know, for what you did to Mom. This must be her revenge—she always did have a great sense of humor.”
Lindsey shot me a look that could kill. “This is your house! Your plumbing! Fix it!”
Nathan stepped in before I could respond. “We’ll call a plumber first thing in the morning,” he said calmly. “In the meantime, you two should probably sleep in the guest room after cleaning up what you can.”
“Do you think this was a sign from Mom?” I whispered to my husband as Lindsey wailed and cursed, trying to salvage what she could. “If not, it sure feels like one.”
My sister-in-law looked like she was about to explode, but Ryan gently guided her out of the room.
As they passed me, I caught Lindsey muttering under her breath that it wasn’t her fault. I rolled my eyes and went back to bed, feeling a strange sense of satisfaction.
The next morning, my brother woke up early and filled us in on what had happened. Lindsey had decided to use the toilet, and while he was sound asleep, she woke him up with a scream—slipping in the mess as she rushed back to jump on the bed!
Nathan and I couldn’t help but burst into laughter at the thought of Lindsey sliding in that foul sludge, and even my brother chuckled.
Unfortunately for Lindsey, her bad luck continued into Christmas Day. The plumber we called couldn’t come until the day after, leaving us to celebrate with a faint sewer smell in the air.
When we sat down for Christmas dinner with the rest of the family—including cousins, aunts, uncles, and more—Lindsey was unusually quiet. She picked at her food while we laughed and exchanged stories.
At one point, Ryan pulled me aside. “Thanks for not kicking us out,” he said awkwardly. “I know Lindsey can be… difficult.”
“Difficult?” I raised an eyebrow. “Ryan, she threw out Mom’s ashes!” I hissed.
“I know,” he sighed, running a hand through his hair. “Believe me, I had no idea she was going to do that. I’m really sorry.”
For a moment, as my anger resurfaced, I considered telling him to pack his bags. But then I glanced at Lindsey. She sat stiffly at the table, her face pale, her eyes darting around nervously as if expecting another catastrophe.
“Maybe that’s punishment enough,” I finally said. Ryan nodded, relief washing over him.
The rest of the evening passed without incident, though my sister-in-law avoided me like the plague. When she tried to complain about her ordeal to the family, they sided with me without hesitation!
“You threw out their mother’s ashes?!” my aunt exclaimed. “What were you thinking?!”
By the end of the night, Lindsey was completely humiliated, and I couldn’t help but feel a sense of poetic justice.
As Nathan and I cleaned up after everyone left, he gave me a sly smile. “Do you think Mom was with us today, even if Lindsey threw her out?”
I laughed, shaking my head. “If she was, I definitely felt it—and I really hope she was!”
Nathan wrapped an arm around me and kissed the top of my head. “Either way, Lindsey got what she deserved.”
I nodded, feeling a weight lift off my shoulders. Mom might not have been with us the way we had planned, but in that moment, I felt her presence stronger than ever.
