I was startled awake by nothing but the sound of silence. I opened one eye, just a tiny bit. It was still dark in the room but I suddenly got this overwhelming feeling I had to get up right away to do something very unpleasant.

Oh, right—leave.

My phone said 4:27 a.m. and for a second, I marvelled at the fact that our bodies are somehow able to program themselves to wake up naturally for a one-off major event.

I turned off my alarm set for 4:30 a.m. Two hours of sleep, not bad. I never make the same mistake twice—staying up all night before taking a very early bus, train or flight is harder than it seems, even for a night owl like me. There’s a huge difference between finishing a page-turner in bed at 4 a.m. knowing that the day is over and you can safely fall asleep any minute, and getting ready for a brand-new day and the whole travel process on no sleep.

“Have you ever woke Mark up in the wee hours?” my mum had asked the night before.

“As a toddler, yeah. We had a few early departure times on the road. But it’s been a while…”

Normally, we take the Air Transat flight from Nantes to Montreal and we don’t have to leave until 9 a.m. But this year, this direct flight was stupidly expensive so I booked us on the 12:20 p.m. Paris-Montreal instead, which meant we had to take the 6 a.m. train from Nantes to Charles de Gaulle airport. And since there are very few tramways at this ungodly hour, Mark and I would have to walk to the train station with our backpacks.

This is why and how I ended up setting the alarm at 4:30 a.m.

We just couldn’t miss this train, or else we would miss the flight.

“I feel sadness,” Mark said the night before.

“Quick and easy, like taking off bandage,” I advised. “Plus we’re both happy to see daddy, right?”

What I didn’t say is that under the bandage, there would probably be a stingy paper cut throbbing when you least expect it for a few days during the healing process.

It would leave a scar, a tiny scar.

Leaving places and leaving people leave scars.

Ask me how I know.

But the best part of leaving at 4:30 a.m. is that you don’t have time to think, you’re just running on adrenaline.

Adrenaline is a wonderful thing.

I woke Mark up and he got dressed quickly, without protesting. He is a good traveller, he knows what to do.

“I got us first-class seats on the TGV train,” I reminded him for extra motivation. It was only an extra five euros so what the hell, I figured we would sleep better and I was totally planning on crashing out on the train.

“It can’t possibly be as comfortable as the Brazilian bus we took between Rio and São Paulo. I’m still dreaming about this bus. I slept in this bus and I didn’t even want to sleep in the first place.”

We grabbed our backpacks and headed downstairs. I never look back. This is the important part. If I look back, I cry. If I keep on walking, I’m okay. This applies to most situations in life for me.

It was a good idea to walk as briskly as we could anyway because come to think of it, crossing Nantes at 4:45 a.m. isn’t a brilliant idea. The streets were dark and mostly empty except for a few drunks, a few drug dealers and quite a few rats running from one garbage container to the next.

We got to the train station much faster than I had thought considering Mark was carrying his backpack (7 kilos) and I had mine (15 kilos) plus a small daypack.

“Oh, crap, the train is going all the way to Brussels…”

“Brussels? Isn’t it in another country?”

“Belgium. I’m going to set up my alarm for 9 a.m. because we’re gonna have to get off the train fast. Otherwise, we’re gonna have fries for breakfast and next thing you know, I’ll be applying for a job at the European Commission.”

“Sometimes, you’re really weird, mommy.”

“I know. Let’s just sleep.”

But first, we had to listen to the endless PA announcements in both French and terrible English. Mark couldn’t stop laughing—”Euh… laydies and gentl—gentlemen. Welcome to zheu train viiiis morningueh…”

Then the ticket inspector came and she woke everybody up, laughing. “I loooove waking up people!”

Honestly, I may be weird but other people are too.

The train was on time and somehow, I remembered how to get from Terminal 2 to Terminal 3.

We dropped off my backpack—I had to print the luggage tag, weigh my bag and scan it by myself “according to the new Air Transat process”—and I got the boarding passes.

Mark had a last ham-and-cheese baguette sandwich.

I got coffee.

We went through security and got our passport stamped then we joined the huge crowd of travellers waiting to board their flight. Fortunately, this is France, so there were free arcade games for kids at the gate, plus a huge smoking room for parents and duty-free booze nearby. We eventually boarded an hour late but no one complained, see the previous sentence.

Mark and I got lucky, the middle seat remained empty. Why we didn’t have side-by-side seats in the first place remains an Air Transat mystery.

I’m not sure what Mark did but I slept on and off and I woke up in Canada where Feng was waiting for us.

Damn, it was a good summer.