CHAPTER 17

IT HAD BEEN SNOWING SINCE MORNING and the streets were now covered. Adele looked out her bedroom window, watching pedestrians trudging through the snow, bundled. Several things had happened over the past weeks as the seasons changed. Youssef had been diagnosed with an ulcer and Adele had been accepted to the University of Toronto again, but this time in the Fine Arts program.

Now she stood in the bookshop across from Bertha.

“Well, it’s time for you to leave this old dusty and crowded shop and head to an even dustier and crowded place called T.O. Are you sure you wouldn’t prefer Montreal?” Bertha teased, hoping Adele would have moved to Bertha’s birthplace.

“I love Montreal, Bertha, but fate has sent me to another big city. I must confess that I’m a little scared,” Adele said.

“Completely normal, my dear. If you weren’t nervous that would make you apathetic. But don’t worry, you’ll do very well in Toronto. It will be so good for you to live on your own.”

Adele nodded and smiled.

“How are your parents taking it?”

“Not very well but they can’t make me change my mind, not this time.”

“They’ll eventually accept your decision. Every parent usually does.”

“I hope so. I want to still be connected to them. I can always visit on long weekends and holidays.”

“Of course! Don’t worry too much. It’s hard for parents, you know, to let go, especially ones like yours who were brought up in a different country with strong ties to family. They don’t want to lose their baby. But you have to convince them that you’re not lost, only living somewhere else,” Bertha said, gently patting Adele’s arm.

“You’re right. I have to let them know that,” Adele sighed.

Back home, she quickly headed up the stairs to her bedroom. Her suitcases lay on the floor opened and half packed. She couldn’t believe she was actually leaving. Tomorrow she’d be boarding an airplane and heading to Toronto and finally living the life she wanted. Over the past few months, she often wondered how she would tell her parents that it was time for her to live on her own and now she was leaving without her father’s blessing. Squatting down on the floor, Adele gazed at her clothes neatly folded in the burgundy luggage and she remembered what her father had told her: If you must leave, then leave, but don’t think you can come back to my house. I only have three daughters now. Knowing her father’s antics, she didn’t want to give in as she had done the last time. This was her time. And she knew this in her heart.

Getting up, she walked across the room and pulled out some more clothes from her drawers, moving with the confidence of someone who knew where she was heading and what she was going to do. But did she really? Her shoulders were straight and her fingers didn’t tremble while placing the items in the baggage but she did feel a pull in her stomach, an uncertainty tearing the muscles under her ribs, and at first she thought they were just phantom pains but she knew it was something else. In spite of everything, she still wanted her father’s approval, wanted him to come in her bedroom and say that he approved of her going away to school. But she’d have to wait an eternity and she didn’t have the time. Tomorrow she’d be gone.

The next day, Adele stood nervously at the Ottawa Macdonald-Cartier International airport. Her sisters stood around her as well as her mother. Youssef had refused to see her off. “Be sure to call when you arrive,” Rima said.

“You’re going to be okay, Monkey,” Mona whispered, leaning into Adele’s ear. Adele softly touched her sister’s face.

“Thanks, Mona,” Adele said. “I’m still fairly stunned, you know. I can’t believe I’m actually leaving.”

“This is what you always wanted,” Katrina said quietly.

Adele didn’t reply. Instead, she looked at her sisters and felt her body grow numb at the prospect of not seeing them every day. She wondered how she would survive this separation, but this was what she had always wanted, as Katrina had just said. Billions of people did it every day, packed up and left their loved ones for jobs, schools, marriage, or whatever, and they survived, so Adele knew she would survive too.

“Do you think Babba will ever forgive me?” Adele asked.

The sisters stared at each other then their mother. Samira lifted up her hands and rested them on Adele’s face. “Don’t worry. Remember to eat and rest well, okay? I won’t be there to cook for you.”

Adele moved back, pushing her mother’s hands away from her face. “I know.” Even now, that’s all that mattered to her mother, Adele thought.

Samira said nothing and stuffed her hands into the pockets of her coat. At that moment, the intercom came on and announced Adele’s flight. She quickly embraced her sisters, then mother before boarding the plane. Not looking back once, she imagined her mother and sisters shaking their heads and criticizing her.