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wasn’t getting special treatment from the other kids. They were so over my stump anyway. They didn’t forget I was missing a foot. But they didn’tcare. Kids my age were by nature little narcissists—the center of their own worlds. If my leg didn’t affect them, they didn’t think much about it.
    My parents, teachers, and school administrators weren’t as blasé. The teachers stealthily kept eyes on me at all times. I learned later about the behind-the-scenes goings-on. My parents requested, and received, hourly updates. They had weekly meetings with school administration. No amount of assurance would have been enough for Mom. If the technology existed back then, she would have texted me a thousand times a day, “R U OK?” Dad was the ringleader of the Monday meetings. They gave him a semblance of control of the unwieldy situation. He couldn’t turn back the clock and undo the accident, but he could be vigilant about preventing another. He would have loved to roll me in bubble wrap and lock me in a cushioned room if he could have. Even today he would if he could get away with it. No matter how old we both get, Dad will always think of me as the little girl he told to “keep on screaming.”
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    As a child, I had some awareness that we were well-to-do. I wanted for nothing (except a foot). Not all of our friends and my classmates lived like we did. They didn’t fly off to their vacation house for long weekends. They certainly weren’t jetting to Africa for spring break. My father was a self-made man. He thoroughly enjoyed his success. Whatever he wanted, he got. Money was no object, whether it was for clothes, cars, houses, art, or food. My parents were so appreciative of all they had since both of them grew up with nothing.
    At the Kenilworth, we had an entire hallway of refrigerators, five of them, with glass doors. Why so many fridges? Well, we were a family of four with a household staff of three. My dad had threekids from his previous marriage, and they sometimes lived with us. My mother’s relatives visited a lot. Mom had grown up starving in post-WWII Germany. For her, a full fridge meant she was safe and sound. And my father did everything in excess, including stocking the larders.
    My parents were fad eaters. When they heard about a trendy diet, they would buy enough of the ingredients and supplements to last for ten years. When my dad read about the next diet or secret to long life, they’d get rid of the old stuff and stock up on new supplies as if for a coming ice age. Mom and Dad tried Fit for Life, a regime of elaborate food combining. They’d only eat certain foods, in certain combinations, at certain times. In the end, they couldn’t keep up with the plan: they were Fit for Months. Dad read that fresh-squeezed juice was good for you, so he bought an expensive juicer and he drove out to Queens to a wholesaler to buy crates and crates of oranges. Yogurt and wheatgrass raved about by health nuts? Suddenly the fridges were packed with active cultures and the crisper drawers were full of grass, like a square of sod. Wheatgrass juice wasn’t available at Whole Foods back then. Whole Foods didn’t exist, for that matter. Dad would have to find a guy who sold the stuff—“Got wheatgrass?”—and then do his own juicing.
    Diets came and went.
    Fashion came and went. Out: Halston and Dior. In: Armani and Donna Karan.
    Houses, too. Out: the barn in Delaware County. (A few years after the accident, my parents sold it lock, stock, and barrel. We never went back, and they didn’t see the point of holding on to it.) In: The Hammerstein estate (as in Rogers and . . . ) in Montego Bay, Jamaica, West Indies. When my dad saw the property, he was instantly smitten. The place was stunning. The estate overlooked the whole islandfrom the mountains to the sea and had a few individual villas surrounding a pool in the middle. Each villa had its own dining room, living room, kitchen, and