With a flourish, Fareeha presented Amelie with a slip declaring she had been officially promoted to the position of Fareeha's mother. Amelie boggled, slack-jawed, before taking the slip in her trembling fingers. Fareeha realized that her joke wasn't going over so well.
“Uh, just kidding? I just meant, it'd be nice to do the stuff I hoped to do with mom...”
“Ms. Amari, t-this is a great honor, but I simply cannot accept this.”
“Excuse me?”
“I know it must mean so much, though, but to do that to Ana...” Amelie's voice cracked. The slip crumbled from the tension in her grip. “But no! You've made your choice and I must abide by that. Fareeha Amari, I am proud to be your mother!”
Amelie clasped Fareeha's hand. Tears of joy spilled down her cheeks. Fareeha struggled to understand what Mrs. LaCroix was going on about, when the French woman's face begun to shift.
$$$
A whirlwind of ifs blurred inside Amelie's mind.
Fareeha is the daughter of a Coptic woman and this man Sam, Amelie explained to herself, and I cannot change that. Then I must be that woman, who Sam met in Cairo, who Sam had his dalliance with before returning to Canada…
Fareeha lives in Cairo with her Uncle Farouk. For him to be her uncle, he must be my brother… my siblings, Farouk and Ana…
I am not Amelie LaCroix, from Paris… I am Aziza Amari-LaCroix, from Cairo…
Amari-LaCroix? Did I still marry Gerald? I am here in Gibraltar, aren't I? And my darling Fareeha. She is on school break and here to visit her mother. Did her mother-- did I leave her needlessly in Cairo? Am I so busy? How did I even met Gerald in Cairo?
Ah, yes, the European Tour. We have a European Tour. We? Yes, the Ballet Company of the Cairo Opera House. I struggled so hard to get in. It was hard when formal education was so expensive. That's right, I am not a rich woman. My sister Ana… my older sister Ana is a whore, that's right, she was recently designated the whore…
Recently? I don't understand. But she is a whore. She is a whore and I used the money from that to learn ballet, rise to prominence, marry this foreign military official… she is here, still a whore.
She has nothing, I have nothing and I even have Fareeha… Fareeha… Fareeha…
$$$
“Fareeha?”
The woman watched as Fareeha stumbled out of her chair in terror. Amelie had blurred away and suddenly this woman had been holding Fareeha's hand. She had Amelie's make-up and Amelie's hair – her clothing was something at would be more fashionable in Dubai than in Rome – her face was a younger copy of Fareeha's mother. Perhaps a little more prone to smiling, her chin held a little higher, and with a little less strength in the neck; but Amelie's features had given way to the thicker nose, lower cheekbones, darker skin, and rounder chin of the Amari's.
“Who are you?” Fareeha shrieked. “How did you get here?”
“Habibi, what are you on about?” Aziza leaned in with concern. “Don't you recognize your own mother?”
“Mom?” How did--?” Fareeha looked at the promotion/demotion slips in her hand. “Mom! Oh my god, what happened to mom?”
“Fareeha, I am right here-” But the girl didn't stay to listen. Fareeha had already bolted from the observation deck.
Sat Oct 20 14:16:42 2018
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