I did with the money the only thing that seemed bearable at the time, which was to turn it into use.

I built a foundation.

I spent the next decade and a half learning how a great deal of money can be pointed at the parts of the world that need it, learning the difference between charity that flatters the giver and help that actually reaches the ground.

It became my life’s work, and it taught me, slowly, the one lesson that would matter most on the afternoon of the bucket: that you learn far more about people from how they treat the powerless than from how they treat you.

Because when you run a foundation, everyone treats you beautifully.

They open doors.

They remember your health, your late husband, the name of your dog.

And for a while I mistook all of that graciousness for information — until I noticed that the truest read on a person was never in how they spoke to me, but in how they spoke to the young man refilling the water glasses while they waited for me to arrive.

I began, without quite deciding to, watching the edges of rooms.

Watching how the important people treated the people who could do nothing for them.