The day my mother died saving someone, I was only 4 years old. Everyone called her a hero and held a moment of silence in her honor. The boy she'd pulled from the water knelt beside her body, sobbing, swearing he would take care of me. Years later, on the anniversary of her death, I could only get two hours off work. I knelt before her grave in my restaurant uniform, carefully wiping the dust from her photograph. "Mom, it's just me again this year." My stepfather said the child my mother had saved with her life had long forgotten about us. I should stop waiting. But just as I tucked the yellowed middle-school withdrawal notice beneath the flowers, a man in a suit appeared behind me, holding white lilies. Looking at my name tag, his eyes slowly turned red. "You're her daughter, aren't you? All these years, I've been sending $200,000 a year—$3.4 million total—for your education. Why are you working at a restaurant?" I clutched the withdrawal notice, too stunned to speak for a long moment. "I dropped out when I was 14."