This Little Light - Lori Lansens Page 0,26

years ago.

I nearly broke my stupid toe trying to move my heavy dresser to get my stupid camera. It’s super-small with a super-long lens—my birthday present from Aunt Lilly. I don’t know if I hope authorities have found it or hope they haven’t. If they see what I recorded, Fee and I could be vindicated, or maybe they’ll destroy it. If they didn’t find my camera, I need someone I trust to get it from my room.

Zee, Bee, Dee—my girls? Fucking pain of betrayal.

Where are they now? Delaney, Brooklyn and Zara? Our sisters? Our hive? Well, it appears they’re pulling an all-nighter with Jinny Hutsall and Reverend Jonze, still dressed in their white gowns because gorge, tweeting at us from their little command post in the cul-de-sac, begging us to turn ourselves in. They’ve set up tables and a coffee station for the investigators, and they’ve been posting selfies with hot cops, and quoting Sinner Scripture that they multi-tag with sad-angry-pukey-face emojis. Like they’ve ever tweeted scripture in their entire lives. Traitors.

And my father. Sherman Miller is still “helping with the investigation.” Would it occur to Sherm that I might remember Javier’s cabin in the woods? That we might come here? Doubtful. On the news they’ve shown pics of him with Sugar Tits, leaving their stunning mansion in Hancock Park. Where are they going?

Before my parents split, my mother often brought up the idea of downsizing to a small place near the old Farmers’ Market or in the Hancock Park area. Sherman said he’d shoot himself in the head before he’d relocate because traffic, but I think it was more the downsizing thing, like, his ego wanted to upsize, upscale, upgrade. He wanted more, not less. Shelley never really cared for Calabasas, but Sherman loved our life, he said, plus I have to admit that I’d have pitched a holy fit and died if they’d made me leave my hive. Never. No.

“There’s no place to walk to here,” my mother used to say. There are actually many places to walk—clean, wide sidewalks in Hidden Oaks, beautiful hiking trails in the mountains—just no place to walk to. Her big-city soul never got used to the suburbs. People use that term “fish out of water” as if it’s so whatever. But fish actually die when they’re taken out of water. So.

I wonder what it was like for my parents when they came to America as new immigrants. California has the highest population of expat Canadians anywhere in the world, but Shelley said it was still a bit of a culture shock—the cars, the money, the swimming pools and movie stars in the Hollywood Hills where they first lived—especially for her. Shelley grew up in a humble Toronto townhouse, daughter of two hard-working parents. My beloved Gramma and Pop.

Sherman grew up rich in Winnipeg, dreaming of the SoCal life—sunshine and ocean breezes, year-round golf, and tennis. He’d tell people they left Canada because they hated the cold. Shelley would correct him: “You hated the cold, babe.” I thought that was an incredibly weak reason to just up and leave your country, until we spent one magical but brutally cold Christmas with my grandparents and aunt in Toronto.

When he started law school, Sherman had aimed to become a defense attorney and make big money handling celebrity cases in Hollywood—that had been his goal. Then he met Shelley Frumkin, busty and blond, with big green eyes that look into, not at, a person. I’m sure Sherman loved her passion and her spirit and her brain, but I know what really got him sprung: Shelley Frumkin was the kind of woman who put others first. Sherman needed to be first. Match.

After my parents were selected in the immigration lottery, they headed for the coast and found jobs, together, at a firm that did a lot of work with immigrants. Long before I was born, they went out on their own to become Miller Law. Work didn’t stop when they left the office. Phone calls. Field visits. Computer time. The more hours they logged, the more successful they became, the more money they made, the happier Sherman was. But Shelley never made peace with money, unless she was spending it at a discount store. Even before Sherman left us, she bought her clothes at Dress for Less. And she insisted on doing so much pro bono and charity work. I guess they never really wanted the same things.

I’m the reason they ended up in Calabasas. Shelley was