In the Interlude

PROLOGUE

3 YEARS AGO

Aïcha woke up on a wet Wednesday morning never imagining that life as she knew it would never be the same.

She had dared to dream of a happy ever after. A life where Idriss and herself would grow up old together, grow grey hair together. Where they would watch Mia grow into the woman she would undoubtedly become.

But life had a plan of its own. A plan it had set in motion long before Idriss came back from La Pitié Salpêtrière, the hospital in the thirteenth arrondissement of Paris.

"What did the doctor say?" Aïcha asked her husband in French, worry written across her face.

Idriss couldn't meet her eyes and continued down the hall walking into their daughter's room. He stopped for a moment at the door and looked tenderly at Mia. Wrapped up in a realm of her own, she was reading while listening to music with her headphones on.

He felt his throat tighten. Mia. His Mia. She was everything he had ever hoped for, and more.

Holding back a sigh, Idriss kissed his daughter on the forehead. She looked up and smiled at him that smile of hers that usually held the power to light up his day, but now it cut him to the heart. How could he tell her that her world was about to explode?

Idriss closed the door behind him and came back to the living room. "Aïcha, come, sit here please," he said, gesturing to the couch.

They had been married for fourteen years and she had never seen his face look so sad or his eyes so empty. "Idriss, for God's sake, tell me what's happening?" she asked, panic rising in her voice.

"There is no easy way to say this." He passed a trembling hand over his neck. "They found a tumour at the back of my brain. A growth the size of a golf ball. The Doctor was surprised I could still function normally."

The news hit Aïcha like a cold hard slap in the face. Tumour. Golf ball. Her mind struggled to reconcile the words.

"They wanted to keep me in the hospital to schedule the procedure in the coming days. But I had to come back." Idriss took her hands in his, the words pouring out of him."I needed to see you, to see Mia. I need to pack my bag, go to work and tell my boss in person what was happening. I need to call my parents before I'm in the hospital. I'm being admitted tomorrow afternoon."

Idriss didn't wait for her to ask questions. He wanted things to be over before they even started. And who could blame him? In contrast, Aïcha couldn't speak nor cry. She sat there, staring back at him, the colour drained from her face, sadness a hard lump in her throat like a nut swallowed whole.

"Papa, Maman, what's going on?"

A long-limbed ten-year-old Mia came running into the room. She was always running as if she was afraid of missing what life had to offer. It was time to shatter her little bubble and for that, Aïcha was already hating the world.

Two days later, everyone was gathered in La Salpêtrière since seven in the morning, when the nurses had come to pick Idriss up in his hospital gown. Aïcha, her daughter, her sister-in-law from Bordeaux and Sofia, her best friend - all anxiously waited for the surgeons to come and deliver them hopefully some good news.

Aïcha felt as if she would implode at any moment.

Not explode in tears or anger or sorrow or self-pity.

No. She couldn't indulge in that.

She felt obligated to power through everything, to hold herself together for the sake of her daughter who was drowning in her own tears.

She felt as if she would implode, disappear in the sea of dark places she was desperately trying to keep at bay. She was trying so hard to hang onto the small possibility of a happy ending. Of living happily ever after.

But it was difficult and exhausting. Her body was there to remind her of that. To remind her she hadn't slept since Idriss announced he had a tumour in his brain; she hadn't eaten either.

Aïcha looked at her phone and the time read four in the afternoon. Her in-laws were due to arrive in Paris any minute now. Visiting relatives in New Caledonia when they got the unfortunate news, they booked the next available flight they could find. It was twenty-two hours long, not counting the overlay in Tokyo. Aïcha could only imagine the state they would be in after flying across the world, hoping for the best.

They finally arrived, a little after six, shattered by the time difference and the anxiety.

Everybody was still in the waiting area. Mia's hands gripped her grandmother's while Aïcha held to her phone like a lifesaver. Her own parents were anxiously waiting for a piece of good news all the way back in Morocco.

"Madame Blissi?" called a person wearing scrubs. "Oui!" answered both Aïcha and her mother-in-law in unison, which would have been quite funny under other circumstances.

She introduced herself as the surgeon and was looking rather stern. "I'm afraid we have some bad news," she said, her calm and measured voice a sharp contrast to the words. "Although we managed to remove the tumour, we couldn't stop the brain from swelling and had to induce a coma. We hope this will give time to Monsieur Blissi's brain to heal itself and for the swelling to disappear."