My family has never been particularly good at boundaries.

We are much better at unsolicited advice, selective helplessness, and the deeply irritating belief that if one person has more money, time, or common sense than everyone else, those resources somehow become communal property.

My name is Diane Sterling.

I’m thirty-nine years old, a senior director of global procurement for a large medical-device company, and I spend so much time traveling that I know which airport lounges have decent coffee, which gates have working outlets, and which hotel chains serve breakfast that doesn’t taste like damp cardboard.

My schedule is relentless.

Dallas on Monday.

Chicago by Wednesday.

Atlanta before the weekend.

I return home long enough to wash clothes, restock the refrigerator, ask my twelve-year-old son why there are seven spoons hidden under his bed, and then head back to another airport.

The job pays well.

After my last promotion, I was earning more than $140,000 a year.

I owned my home.

My car was paid off.

I had savings.

I wasn’t rich by any outrageous standard, but I had something very dangerous in my family:

A stable income.

And relatives who knew exactly how stable it was.

My son Leo was twelve.

He was smart, sarcastic, obsessed with astronomy, and somehow convinced that putting dirty clothes into a laundry basket violated his constitutional rights.

He also had a serious eye condition.