“Gram and Gran would have been proud,” I heard my mom drunkenly slur from behind me. “We did it one last time, doll.”

I turned around to see my mother and her quaff of faded-blonde hair holding up a toast of her White Russian to no one. My step-dad and his already-finished scotch and 7Up lay passed out next to her on Gram and Gran’s beat-up leather couch.

My mother hadn’t put down a drink since we received the $750,000 offer on Gram and Gran’s place. I understood those six digits on paper meant she could “retire” from her dead-end office assistant job in a year or two, but I personally thought the five-week, never-ending celebration was taking things a bit too far.

Here I was, still crying about losing my beloved grandparents and she was over there pickling herself like the Claussen pickles stork. Maybe that was just her way of coping though?

“I’m so proud of you Rebecca,” my mom gurgled from the couch again.

The only thing worse than a parent who never tells you they are proud of you is one that only does when they are at least three drinks in.

I shook off the darkness of my mother and took one last look at the snow globe in hopes its serene nostalgic would help me block out her obnoxious presence.

My plan was an instant disaster. I blinked twice to confirm what I saw in the snow globe was actually there.