Then I opened my mother’s social media, because I already had a suspicion about where thirty-eight thousand dollars might go, and I wanted to be sure before I let myself feel it.

There she was.

Jessi, beaming, in a sundress, beside a sunlit rooftop pool with the Miami skyline behind her.

And beside her, my sister Stephanie, laughing, holding up a crystal flute of champagne to the camera.

The photograph was captioned, without any apparent awareness of irony, with four words that I will remember for the rest of my life.

Sometimes women deserve real luxury.