Secrets in the Snow - Emma Heatherington Page 0,20

Mabel, just like she asked us to.’

I take a step back. My energy is unfathomable and I know he is trying to fight against it just like I did with Mabel so many times, but I’m not letting it go.

‘Today?’ he asks. ‘Are you serious? Look, Roisin, I know your intentions are in the right place but sledging in the snow is the last thing on my mind right now, and I get what Mabel was saying in that she looked upon you as family, but I know absolutely nothing about you. Nothing that would make me want to stop the world today so we can go sledging.’

My cheeks burn with mortification

‘Oh, OK,’ I mutter, feeling a weight in my stomach. ‘I – I was just trying to do what Mabel told us to. Like, there’s no point in us listening to her words of wisdom if we aren’t going to take heed, is there?’

Aidan scratches his head, looks at his watch, and then back at me in wonder.

‘Have fun,’ he says and he leaves me standing there, feeling incredibly stupid for suggesting such a thing to someone so busy. ‘It’s not for me, not today, sorry. Bye for now, Roisin. And thanks again.’

The door closes behind him and I feel the room spin.

I breathe out. I want to crawl into a hole and hide, or press rewind and undo my enthusiasm and suggestion to follow Mabel’s instructions, but then I hear her words again, her reminder to do something today to make us feel alive.

Why should I ignore that just because Aidan doesn’t want to heed her? Why should I spend another afternoon staring at the walls feeling sorry for myself like it’s the end of the world?

It’s not every day we have such a thick fall of snow in Ballybray, and just because Aidan Murphy doesn’t want to go sledging, doesn’t mean we can’t. I feel a race of adrenaline pump through my veins for the second time that day, and feel some of Mabel’s old verve and drive return within me.

‘Ben!’ I call to my son, determined to snap him out of his morbid silence, taking inspiration from Mabel as I so often did before. ‘Ben, come on, get dressed. We’re going sledging in Warren’s Wood!’

I go into his bedroom to find him staring at me, the controls of his games console still in his hand and his mouth open.

‘Sledging? For real?’ he asks. ‘Are you feeling OK?’

‘Yes, for real, and yes I’m feeling surprisingly good!’ I tell him, as I find him a T-shirt, a hoodie, and a warm jacket and throw them his way. ‘We’ve been moping around for long enough. Let’s go and live a little like Mabel would have wanted us to.’

‘Cool!’ says Ben, taking me equally by surprise by automatically buying into my plan. ‘That’s the best idea ever, Mum!’

I’ve never been a ‘let’s drop everything and do something out of the norm to raise the spirits’ kind of person, but Mabel was exactly that type and I’d often wondered how she kept it going, but now I’m feeling it for real.

I know for sure that since I heard her voice again today and saw her beautiful face so full of light and life despite the grim reality she was facing when she made her recording, my own dark days of winter are already feeling a whole lot brighter already.

Whatever Aidan Murphy decides to do from now on is, just like he said, absolutely none of my business, but Ben and I are going sledging in the snow today, we’re going to have some fun, and I can’t wait.

8.

‘It’s freezing up here, Mum!’ says Ben as we trudge up the hill to Warren’s Wood, wrapped up in more layers than an onion an hour later. ‘I can’t believe you wanted to go sledging instead of just walking around the lake like we usually do on the weekend to get some fresh air.’

My woolly hat just about keeps the wind out of my ears, but the higher we climb up the gradient of the hill, the more cutting the chill on my face feels and I’m beginning to wonder if we are a bit insane for taking up Mabel’s instruction so literally on a day like today.

‘It’s important to change things up, and we mightn’t see snow like this again for years,’ I tell my son, knowing I’m trying to convince myself this is a good idea. I stop to catch my breath