Fun fact about me: I write with my left hand and do everything else with my right. They’ve found that ambidextrous people––those who can use both hands—have a thicker corpus callosum, which is a bridge that helps the two parts of the brain talk to each other, like the Golden Gate Bridge connecting San Francisco to our county (Marin County).

The left side of the brain is the scientific, logical part and controls the right side of the body. The right side of the brain is in charge of creativity and controls the left side of the body. Does that mean the left side of my body is the creative part? Is that why Mom paints with her left hand?

Gram says her mother, my great-grandmother, cried the first time she saw the Golden Gate Bridge. She’d imagined it as a bridge made of solid gold shining the way to her new life in America. The dull red was a disappointment. She saw it as a sign that life isn’t made of dreams. You have to make your own.

I love driving over the bridge when the fog hides it from view and all you see are the tips of its rust-colored towers. When the sun peeks through, the rust becomes a brilliant red color, better than any gold-colored bridge. It whispers to me, telling me to dream big and never give up.

I’m not sure why my great-grandmother couldn’t see that. But if all she saw was a dull red bridge and she still wanted to make her own dreams come true, then I can understand why Gram loved her so much. She sounds like the kind of person who doesn’t give up easily.

All my life Gram has told me her mother was from a little village in France. Dad says he loved her accent and how it made everything she said mysterious. Could the accent he remembered actually have been Russian?

“Dad?”

He sips out of his coffee cup and changes lanes after a quick glance in his side mirror. “Yeah?”

“Did your grandma ever speak French to you?”

“That’s a random question,” he says with a laugh. “Well, let me think. Now that you mention it, I’m not sure she ever did. Your gram was always on her case about speaking only English. By the time I was born, she’d been in this country long enough to be somewhat fluent. And you know she died when I was pretty young. I think I was seven or eight.”

“Did she teach Gram any French?”

“Why so interested?” He smiles at me like he does when I amuse him.

I fiddle with my seat belt. “I was thinking I might want to learn French.”

“It’s a beautiful language. Gram could help you with it. I don’t think you forget your first language.”