Six years ago, I took over my father’s finances.

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I was 25 and had just moved in with my boyfriend, who is now my husband, and was working in New York as a health reporter making what felt like barely enough to cover my commute. I knew nothing about money — and now I was in charge of my father’s complicated and secretive finances.

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Until that point, I had been living a narrative that may be familiar to many Americans. My parents divorced when I was halfway through high school. We struggled financially, though my mother never let my brother and me catch on. It was always the three of us, and we moved a lot. Growing up, I knew my father through a revolving door in the lobby of our lives. Child support and his sobriety were just as unpredictable. Eventually, he made an attempt to sober up and rented an apartment in a town next to us.

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