how demanding it is sometimes, how he has lately really felt like packing it all in and downscaling when the pressure became too tough.
‘It’s like living in someone else’s cocoon, with high expectations you never seem to reach and even when you do, they only raise the bar until you’re so dizzy and don’t ever think you’ll find your way back to earth again.’
He opens up about the social life in New York and how he sometimes finds it too busy and fast, and how he likes to disappear when he can to a tiny Irish pub he’d found just to get a sense of comfort he often craved in such a huge, anonymous city.
‘You’ve no idea how much I appreciate the humour from home or even the familiarity of our own accent,’ he says with a smile. ‘Of course I can’t even admit to Rachel that’s where I’ve been. That would be the ultimate sign of weakness to her.’
‘Why?’ I ask him. ‘Wouldn’t she like to get to know more about where you come from, even if it’s only over a drink in a pub that makes you feel welcome?’
He laughs off the suggestion.
‘Control,’ he admits to me, and I raise an eyebrow at his admission, his story all too familiar. ‘It’s all about control at the end of the day in her world, and I’m so glad to be out of it, if only for a while.’
We talk until it’s time for me to pick up Ben from his horse riding lesson in Dunfanaghy, and Aidan agrees to come with me for the ride, a gesture I find much more endearing than any offer of money or material goods.
‘See, it’s as simple as this,’ I say to him as I drive my rusty pick-up truck towards the seaside equestrian centre. ‘Ben is going to be over the moon to see you, so be prepared for some mighty fine showing off on his part.’
I catch Aidan smiling out of the window as we drive along the coast and something touches my heart at the sight of it. It’s as if he is very slowly, day by day, minute by minute, going back in time to a much slower pace of life in his mind and, from what he’s told me, it’s exactly what he needs.
And so as the days of spring pass by, instead of pining every time I miss Mabel or when I feel like I’m drowning without her or if I too need an ear just to have a mild rant about something, I go into her kitchen and have a cup of tea with Aidan, dwelling in the place of her warmth, love and generosity. We sit together, we put on the awkward heating system or light the fire, and I do my best to wean myself off her love and guidance, little by little, feeling her breath on my back as I grow stronger and stronger without her.
We talk about music, we talk about movies, and Ben loves to tell Aidan all his really important news such as who in his class has a secret girlfriend, and his excitement for his eleventh birthday in August where he is torn between having a boys’ only soccer-themed party in the community hall or a bouncy castle in the back garden, which may or may not be cool enough for his friends.
More recently our chats have turned to the mysterious location of Mabel’s next message and the excitement and wonder of what it might say.
‘Have you checked the drawers in her bedroom, or you know the place she kept all her correspondence?’ I ask Aidan, when spring is most definitely well under way. ‘Or looked in the cupboard above the fridge? It has to be around the house somewhere.’
‘I’ve looked everywhere,’ he tells me, and I know it’s true. ‘Absolutely everywhere.’
Between us, we haven’t left a stone unturned as we search Mabel’s home for clues as to where the next message might lie, and I even take the opportunity to while away some time looking through some of Mabel’s photos. When I come across one of Aidan and his wife Rachel, I realize the mysterious lady who stood next to him at the funeral looked nothing like Rachel at all. They were both blonde, yes, but Rachel’s features are much sharper and she is a lot taller than the woman I’d mistaken her for.
My stomach flips a bit when I see that Rachel is a beauty queen, that’s