Trust me; the irony that the first real home I’d ever had was a Beverly Hills mansion has not escaped me.

My mother and I had been nomads my whole life; always on the move, always looking for the next adventure. Sure, I realized that eventually we would have to stop; one of these days, the money would run out and we would have to make ourselves respectable. Find a place in a small town— a trailer, maybe— and live like regular people.

The one scenario I had not envisioned was that we would suddenly come into fortune at the hands of a father I’d never known about. That one, of course, was the one that came true.

We landed at LAX with beaten up suitcases and glares from the flight attendants, having flown first class at my father’s insistence. We wandered around like kids at a candy store— I’d never seen so many people in my life. A few yards from the gate stood a man in a suit, holding a sign that read “Susan and Willow McCarthy”. Our names.

Head high, I walked toward the beginning of my new life.