It isn’t hard for this 34-year-old sister to spot irony in its purest form the second her brother’s wife tells her she’s not welcome at Thanksgiving while standing in the designer kitchen she literally paid for. Three years earlier, she gave the couple 85 thousand dollars to save their house, calling it a loan with zero interest. Paperwork signed, hugs shared, promises made. Then life happened. A divorce, new job, less money to spare, and a gentle request to start repayment turned into her brother pretending amnesia and his wife laughing it off like generosity was a lifetime subscription.  

So yes, she called her lawyer. Legally, morally, cosmically justified. The family painted her as cruel for filing a lien on the house, yet nobody blinked when they remodeled the kitchen with borrowed money and unearned smugness. Gratitude apparently doesn’t pair well with marble countertops. Thanksgiving exile turned into Christmas karma when a process server rang the doorbell mid-dinner and handed foreclosure papers to the happy homeowners. Holidays really do bring people together, mostly in lawsuits.