MARRYING INTO GREAT WEALTH DOESN’T ENSURE HAPPINESS or stability. For some people, living among the one percent does the exact opposite: it reveals the depth of their wanting. One infamous woman, born into humble circumstances, married a billionaire. Over the years, she spent obscene amounts of money on plastic surgery. Her rumored goal was to look like a cat, which she more or less achieved, with high cheekbones, feline-slanted eyes, and peaked eyebrows. As her face changed, she became the subject of tabloid covers and society gossip. It’s easy to judge the woman’s conspicuous consumption and frivolous spending, her vanity and bold denials. But to me, she’s a tragic figure. Imagine feeling so unfulfilled and so lacking—for love, for attention, we’ll never know—that you pay millions of dollars to carve up your face.

My biological mother, Rachel Forrester, has a similarly tragic story. She was raised in rural Wisconsin. Her parents, a postman and a teacher’s aide, worked hard, lived modestly, and passed away in their early sixties. She loved them but had higher aspirations; her dream was to move to New York and work on Wall Street. After graduating from a small Chicago college, Rachel got an MBA at NYU. Her first job was with Forrester Holdings, where the chairman, CW, happened to notice the tall, slender redhead with freckles and light eyes, thirty-four years his junior. While their relationship seemed unlikely, what began as a passing attraction evolved into a genuine love affair. But after their wedding, instead of enjoying her newfound riches, Rachel drank herself into oblivion, and ended up dead at thirty-two.

My memories of CW are hazy—a gruff man with grasshopper legs, the earthy smell of cigar smoke, a mitt-sized hand cupping my head, the soft brush of a camel hair coat. Rachel, I remember more clearly. Like me, she loved word searches, card games, and puns. We played Hangman and Scrabble. We watched Wheel of Fortune. Though I rarely think about CW, I do wonder about Rachel. Admittedly, my feelings are complex, but I miss her in ways I can’t quite articulate. Even when she was alive, I wanted more of her than she could give. It seemed like she was always on the move, always far away, always someplace I wasn’t.

Now, I’m almost the age she was when she met CW, and I can better appreciate her situation. Rachel hitched her wagon to a man three decades older who thrust her, with no preparation or support, into his high-society life. I’m sure it felt alien and lonely. She was an outsider, watching a party through the window. My birth likely triggered post-partum depression that caused her to crumble, and then CW’s death sent her over the edge. But Rachel’s unraveling, unlike the cat woman’s, was shorter, swifter, and less visible to the naked eye.