Three days after our wedding, my mother, Salma Corliss, had asked for my payroll card.

She said young people wasted money, that she would hold it and save toward a house for us.

I had just been promoted at an engineering firm — four thousand dollars a month, more money than I had ever handled — and I gave her the card and the PIN without a moment’s hesitation.

“This is absurd, Neil,” Amina had said back then.

“We’re adults.

We should manage our own money.” “You’re just greedy and ambitious,” my mother had snapped at her.