Three days before her wedding, my sister in law stood in my kitchen and told me the restaurant had flooded and she needed my lake house. That house was my grandmother’s. She planted every bed in that garden, hand sewed the pillows on the couch, and made me pancakes in that kitchen on Saturday mornings for most of my childhood. I keep it exactly as she left it, and I said no. Then my husband asked me to help because Danielle was family, and I gave in. I never saw the ceremony. My aunt went into the hospital that morning and I spent the day beside her bed instead.

I came back the next afternoon to a wrecked house. My grandmother’s flower beds had been torn out to build an arch. Champagne bottles, plastic cups, and wrappers covered the yard and the floors. The lawn was gouged where the tables had been dragged. When I called, Danielle laughed and told me it was her wedding, she did whatever she wanted, and I should have started cleaning already instead of phoning her.