Hidden Heiress Of Manhattan

My mother died in the winter.

She was twenty-four that year, pregnant, and had been kicked out of a townhouse on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.

In the midst of a December blizzard, she walked twelve blocks wearing nothing but a thin dress. On a park bench in Central Park, she gave birth to me.

She didn't go to the hospital. Her wallet had been stolen, her phone smashed, and not a single soul in New York City was willing to help an unwed mother.

She survived until I was three. Then, in a r