I didn’t say a word when my future sister-in-law, Kara, decided my backyard would become her emergency wedding venue. I should have—because by the time I came home, she’d turned the place I loved most in the world into rubble.
My backyard wasn’t just grass and flowers; it was the heart of my home. I’d planted the roses myself—the same kind my late mother used to grow—along a freshly painted white fence. I’d built the trellis from reclaimed lumber, watching clematis vines wind their way skyward every spring. Every beam, every petal, every stone had a story.
So when Kara’s fancy riverfront venue flooded three days before her wedding, and she begged to use my backyard, I hesitated. Her parents begged too. My fiancé, Colin—her brother—wrapped his arm around me and whispered, “Come on, babe. Be a lifesaver.”
I finally agreed, on one condition: “You can use it,” I said. “But nothing gets changed. Not a flower. Not a fence post. Promise me.”
They all swore.
Two days later, I came home to find devastation. The fence ripped out. Flowerbeds gutted. My mother’s roses hacked apart and crammed into a makeshift arch. My handmade trellis splintered in pieces. Kara stood in the middle of it all, clipboard in hand, sipping iced coffee.
“Don’t you love it?” she chirped. “It’s so open now! And your roses make the arch really pop!”
My voice shook. “You destroyed everything.”
She rolled her eyes. “It’s just flowers and old wood. It’s my wedding day, Dani. You can’t seriously care about a few plants.”
Colin didn’t defend me. He just smirked. “Babe, calm down. It’s just a garden.”
Something inside me snapped. I didn’t yell or cry. I simply smiled—coldly—and started planning.
