My mother, Sylvia, and my brother, Brett, and my sister, Talia, had taken the family emergency fund and spent it on a luxury Caribbean cruise.

That fund — the account I sent a large piece of my Navy paycheck into every single month, specifically so that Walt would have what he needed while I was gone.

There was a tablet on the coffee table, and as I picked it up a notification lit the screen: my brother, grinning on the top deck of a cruise ship in a new pair of expensive sunglasses, one arm around his girlfriend. Working hard to play harder, the caption read. Living the life we deserve.

I opened the banking app on my phone.