At my mother’s annual garden party, she snatched my eight-year-old daughter’s plate and said, “Adopted children eat in the kitchen.” Seventy-five relatives went dead silent. I took a slow sip of water and said nothing—until my teenage son stood up and asked, “Grandma, should I tell everyone who really owns this house?”

Every July, my mother hosted a garden party at the old house on Briarwood Lane in Connecticut. White tents rose over the lawn, magnolia trees cast wide shadows, and neighbors arrived dressed as if they were attending a wedding instead of a family gathering.

When I was a child, I believed those parties were about tradition. As an adult, I understood they were about image, and my mother, Judith Morgan, guarded that image fiercely.