today, Nina?” my principal asked.

“Pretty good,” I answered, immediately realizing that was the wrong answer. I panicked and corrected myself. “Well, I mean, not so good.”

There was a pause on the other end of the line. I knew that it was wrong to lie but that I couldn’t tell him the truth either. I can still recall the queasy feeling in the pit of my stomach, the shame that I couldn’t yet put into words.

Mr. Bedford told me to give my mother a message: he expected her to return his call as soon as she could.

Of course, my mother didn’t call back, so the next day Mr. Bedford telephoned again. This time, my mother answered. She told him about her own stomach problems, that she was going to the hospital on Monday for treatment and that it was possible I had the same issues, inherited from her, that I couldn’t return to school just yet and that she didn’t feel I was ready to start home tutoring either. She was very concerned.

The summer before sixth grade, my school assigned a teacher to tutor me at home so that I could try to catch up before the beginning of the year, but by then my mother had found a tick bite on my body, and I spent the summer in bed with tick fever.

That September, the first day of school loomed ahead of me. I always dreaded the first day back. I can still remember the feeling of rising panic in the pit of my stomach as I thought about the school bus pulling in to the circle in front of our school. I didn’t have friends at school; I wasn’t part of any friendship group because I was never there. The other kids teased me, calling me names.

I remember standing in our laundry room the day before my first day of sixth grade. My mother was quietly folding the clean clothing; the air in the laundry room was warm, and the washing machine hummed its familiar tune, but I was worried. I had just climbed the stairs and was a little out of breath, so I decided to put my hand on my chest. I could feel my heart pounding wildly beneath my fingers; I’d never felt my heart racing like this before. I tugged at my mother’s blouse, getting her attention. I asked her if she could hear my heart beating, and she said yes. Then she put her hand to my chest. I could tell from her expression that something was very wrong.

The next day we drove into Manhattan to see a cardiologist. I don’t remember anything about his assessment of me, but I do know that my mother was so worried about my heart problem, I didn’t go to school for the rest of the year.

By now, a pattern had been established. My mother kept me home from school, which meant that I was afraid to go to school, which meant I then colluded with her to make sure I didn’t have to go to school. We were trapped in this vicious cycle together.

*   *   *

MEANWHILE, IN PHILADELPHIA, Robin was in trouble. That November, on my twelfth birthday, my eighteen-year-old sister was arrested at an anti–Vietnam War protest for “contemptuous display” of the American flag. She had been seen with a group of people who were dragging the Stars and Stripes along the ground. I knew about the antiwar marches and demonstrations because I had seen them on the news; now I learned that my sister had joined the movement. Like so many young people at that time, Robin was passionate about ending a war that had already sent tens of thousands of young American men to their deaths. Later, I learned that my sister was writing volumes of poetry and song lyrics about the injustices of the times. After her arrest, Robin pleaded not guilty but was sentenced to pay a fine of fifty dollars or serve five days in jail. She spent one day and one night in jail, at which point the father of a friend of hers paid the fine. Robin was released, but the experience of being arrested didn’t stop her from protesting; quite the opposite. She became a volunteer for Vietnam Veterans Against the War. She had ambitions to be a singer-songwriter, and was playing her guitar and performing at protests up and down the East Coast.

The following year, Robin caught bronchial pneumonia. At the same time, a childhood neck problem had flared up again, and she was scared; her breathing was constricted and it was causing her to black out. She had seen multiple doctors, but no one seemed to be able to help. On April 5, 1972, she called my mother to tell her she wasn’t getting any better. My mother told her to come home immediately, but Robin refused. She didn’t want to see our father; they weren’t speaking to each other. My mother was frantic: the rift between my father and Robin was tearing our family apart and endangering Robin’s health.

Right there on the phone, my mother came up with a plan to fix things. We were going to leave Long Island and move to France. Although she had no money of her own, a twelve-year-old daughter in her care, and no means of supporting herself, my mother decided this was the only solution. Jill and Robin would come, too. Grace would help us. My sisters and my mother would work there or get support from my father. And while in France, we could go to the holy shrine at Lourdes, where we could all be cured.

Although Grace and my mother kept in touch via letter and the occasional phone call, it had been more than a decade since my mother had last seen the princess. My mother didn’t wait to send a note to the palace or telephone to let Grace know we were coming. My father was away on business, so my mother simply seized the window

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