Secrets in the Snow - Emma Heatherington Page 0,57

totally understanding how a mother would want to think exactly that way when she’d lost one of her precious sons so tragically.

‘What I did question on any given opportunity as I grew older,’ Aidan confides in me, ‘is why I wasn’t in my parents’ car on that night of the accident.’

‘Oh, Aidan.’

I’ve never heard about any of this – not from Mabel and definitely not from Aidan.

‘You see, I should have been in the car that night too, Roisin,’ he tells me, his face etched with despair as he sits staring into the empty fire grate in front of him. ‘I did eventually get an answer to that question when Mabel told me the truth when I first went to New York and she felt I was strong enough and old enough to hear about it.’

‘I’m so glad she told you,’ I say, gently encouraging him to trust me with this most painful memory that is already bringing tears to his eyes. He loosens his shirt collar and takes a deep breath.

‘My folks had returned to Ballybray to pick me up from my grandparents after a weekend on the road, as was often the case,’ he remembers with a slight tremble in his voice, ‘but when they arrived, a row instantly broke out between my dad and Peter, who was over to visit. They hadn’t got on well for a long time, and this was a normal occurrence when their paths would cross.’

He rubs his face again and takes his time, not knowing how much it’s breaking my heart to see him recount such painful times from his childhood, as if it was yesterday.

‘I was … I was taken out for ice cream the moment tensions were raised,’ he explains, ‘but my parents stormed off, saying they’d only be back later when Peter was gone. They never … they never did made it back for me, ever again of course.’

Oh no. I close my eyes, trying to absorb the trauma that must have unfolded around a very young Aidan that night as the worst thing possible came to his family’s door when he was just a little boy.

‘Roisin, I know that if Mabel hadn’t taken me away that evening to protect me from their argument,’ he says, swallowing his emotion, ‘if she hadn’t used her instinct to get me offside, I’d have been in that car and I’d have been killed too.’

I hold my breath.

‘Mabel, in her wisdom to take me for something as simple as an ice cream, saved my life,’ he whispers, his voice cracking. ‘My dear aunt Mabel saved my life.’

He swallows. He looks away, and then he lets out a long, deep breath of relief to have shared his story.

‘Wow,’ I whisper. ‘I had absolutely no idea. She never, ever said.’

I realize now how much of this all makes sense. No wonder Mabel was so protective and close to Aidan through his younger years. No wonder she was so proud of him as she watched him develop from the terrified youngster he was that night to the determined young adult and then the successful man he went on to become. No wonder she loved talking about his success like it was the be all and end all to everything, because to her, he was so special.

And no wonder her loss is taking its toll on him as much as it is on me.

We sit in silence for a few seconds, saying nothing, but at the same time, saying it all as we digest Mabel’s words and her mission for us this springtime. I want to reach out and touch him, to tell him I’m glad that he wasn’t in the car on the night his parents were so tragically killed, and I’m so grateful for Mabel’s intuition that night, and honoured that he felt he could share his story with me.

And so for the first time since I met Aidan, I do just that. I reach across and I touch his hand to show him that I do care about all he has been through and all he is going through now as he tries to figure his life out, both his past here in Ballybray and his future in America, whatever that may hold.

‘Thanks, Roisin,’ he whispers to me as we sit here hand in hand with Mabel’s words still echoing in our ears. ‘You’ve been good for me lately.’

‘And you’ve been good for me too, Aidan,’ I tell him, feeling a tiny bit awkward