Since He Left ✓

01/1: Frisco

"The beginning is the most important part of the work." - Plato

Listen to Pacify Her by Melanie Martinez. 

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When Mom insisted we go on vacation, I didn't argue... but I did have one priority. We'd go to San Francisco—or, as I preferred to call it, Frisco. The purpose of this trip wasn't only to celebrate our new family, but also to have a satisfying start to the long-awaited summer holiday. Frisco was my birthplace of 1999, and it was also the location that I liked to visit every other summer holiday.

California, I've missed you.

The crowded streets, the refreshing salty air, the vague fragrance of coffee, cloudless blue sky: this was home. It was warm here unlike Paris, where our actual house was located.

It was our first time in San Francisco without my biological father and my missing brother. Today, two new family members had joined us in the tradition: Joseph, my new stepfather, and his son Nick. Joseph and my mother, Camille, had met through Nick and me, for Joseph was a former substitute teacher at our high school back in Paris. 

I knew Nick before our parents' marriage, which is, now that I think about it, strange. Nick was seventeen, a year older than me. I used to share a few classes with him, like Literature and Algebra. We also had mutual friends, but we'd never had a real conversation. That is, until our parents met during my parent–teacher conference, where Joseph was covering for my ill homeroom teacher.

The process of their relationship was quite odd to me. It was rather very soon after my biological father had left us. I saw it as a rebound relationship, although my mother saw it as pure love. It never made sense to me, but it was undeniably better than her last relationship, the seventeen-year affair that I was involved in. That relationship of which I was born, named Isla, lost my first tooth, and learned to walk. I was very much involved. The divorce process ended immediately but quite pacifically, no broken hearts. Both had briskly healed, one of the hearts discovering and belonging to another. My biological father was not in the picture anymore, and I thought nothing of it.

The relationship between Joseph and my mother developed rapidly, starting with dinners and flourishing to a wedding. Camille's second marriage took place one month ago, where I was chosen to be the maid of honour. Moving around the rented garden in a lengthy lilac-coloured dress, I thought the entire event was beautiful. Despite the elegance of my dress, it didn't stand a chance against my mother's. Her exquisite white gown reached her dazzling silver heels, and the pearls woven into the bodice of the dress complemented her jewellery finely. She was dressed to impress, and the dress did beyond impressing.

Soon after the wedding, Joseph and his son were all settled in our house. It was no doubt a big house; fifteen rooms and seven bedrooms spread over four floors. The five-hundred-sixty-one-meter squared area had soaring ceilings and a superb master suite. You could call it a mansion, an exceptional one.

I was beyond grateful for all we had, and no complaints ever left my mouth, but something about San Francisco always left me stunned. It may have been the people, the view of the Golden Gate Bridge, or simply the art that came along with the name "San Francisco". Childhood memories rushed to the surface: my face stuffed in pink cotton candy, the smell of fish when we were in Chinatown, the moment we hit the top of those cherished Ferris wheels, and the feel of my bare toddler feet in the water of Baker Beach. They were memories that always blossomed in my mind whenever I took the first step out of San Francisco International Airport.

As we stepped out of the glass-fronted airport, my mind was reeling.We were all standing in a line, each holding a carry-on bag in one hand. I wondered if Nick had ever been in California; his astonished gaze made me think otherwise. It seemed that the pain from the past fourteen hours glued to the airplane seat had utterly vanished, instantly replaced with awe.