No big deal, right? She’d been drinking wine all night, and she was in her 60s, so fine. But then 10 minutes passed.
Then 20. Jett leaned over and whispered, “She’s been in there a while.”
I nodded, trying to stay calm, though I already felt that sick feeling in my stomach. After 30 minutes, Jett got up and said he was going to check on her, and that’s when Ivy suddenly came out.
She didn’t look at anyone or explain what took so long. Instead, she grabbed her coat, muttered something about “not feeling well,” and said she needed to go home. She walked right out the front door while Jett called after her.
No thank you, no goodbye hugs, not even a “Happy Thanksgiving.”
The second the door closed, I rushed to the bathroom. What I saw nearly made me scream! The toilet was clogged so bad it was overflowing!
Water had spilled everywhere and soaked the bathroom rug. The smell hit me like a punch! I looked around for a plunger — gone!
I had left it in there that morning, but it was nowhere to be found. “Ivy!” I whispered to myself like I was in a scary movie. “You’ve got to be kidding me!”
Jett came up behind me and froze.
“Oh my God,” he muttered. “She didn’t even say anything?”
“She left this and just walked out,” I snapped, pointing to the floor that now looked like a swamp. We had to spend the next hour cleaning up the mess.
Jett unclogged the toilet with his bare hands — what a saint — while I wiped the floor and aired out the room with every candle and window we had. Sage stayed in the living room with her cousins, thankfully not knowing about the disaster on the other side of the house. I couldn’t believe that my MIL had just left us to deal with this while our guests were still sitting in the living room.
The rest of Thanksgiving felt like walking through fog. Our guests eventually left, and Jett and I sat on the couch in silence, tired and beat. “I don’t even know what to say,” he said finally.
“I do,” I replied. “Christmas is still at her house this year, right?”
He nodded slowly. “Good,” I said.
“Because I have plans.”
The weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas were a blur of peppermint drinks, shiny wrapping paper, and late nights with a sneaky plan forming in my head. I didn’t tell Jett every detail, but he could tell I was up to something. “You’re not going to do anything crazy, right?” he asked one night while folding laundry.
“Depends on what you call crazy,” I said, shrugging with a smile. He raised an eyebrow. “Wren…”
“Babe, your mom left a huge mess in our only bathroom and walked out without a word.
I think it’s time someone paid her back — nicely, of course.”
He didn’t argue, just folded another towel and said, “As long as it’s legal.”
I smiled big. “Oh, it’s definitely legal. But also… unforgettable.”
When Christmas Day arrived, we got dressed up, packed Sage into the car with her sparkly red dress and gift bag, and drove to Ivy’s house.
Jett drove quietly beside me, until we pulled into her driveway. “Just promise me you won’t burn the house down,” he said under his breath. “No fire,” I whispered.
“Just fireworks.”
My MIL’s home was already full of family. There were cousins, aunts, uncles, and a few people I hadn’t seen in years. Her living room smelled like cinnamon and roast, and a golden dog named Baxter wandered around, licking up dropped food.
Ivy met us at the door wearing a shiny green blouse, hair teased up super high. “Well, look who decided to show up,” she said, kissing Jett’s cheek and giving me a quick nod. I handed her two boxes, one big and wrapped in sparkly gold paper, the other small and tied with a red ribbon.
“For you,” I said nicely. She glanced at them with a fake smile. “You really didn’t have to.”
“I know,” I said.
“But I wanted to.”
I kept a straight face the whole time. Dinner was mostly fine, I’ll give her that. She had the house decorated like a holiday magazine with twinkly lights everywhere, a huge tree with white and gold ornaments, and her best plates out for the occasion.
Everyone seemed relaxed. Sage played with her cousins while the adults passed around wine and told stories. Just like Ivy did at my house for Thanksgiving, I waited until dessert to make my move.
Ivy had just brought out a tray of peppermint brownies when I said it, casually, with a laugh in my voice. “Remember Thanksgiving? Someone clogged our only toilet and didn’t say a word.
The whole house smelled like a swamp! Good times.”
The room went quiet for a second. You could hear a fork drop.
Aunt Lisa, always the nosy one, leaned in. “Wait, you know who did it?”
I looked around, smiled sweetly, and said, “Oh yes, that was Ivy.”
Her eyes shot to me, her jaw tight. “Excuse me?”
“You were the only one who went in.
About 30 minutes later, we found the bathroom flooded. And the plunger — gone. Thought it was weird you left so fast.”
Laughter started across the table.