Secrets in the Snow

I gulp and have to look away, realizing that Aidan and my son have a lot more in common than I would ever have imagined. They both suffered the loss of their dad at an incredibly young age, and witnessing this very unexpected moment between them chokes me up inside.

Ben nods and plonks down onto his sledge, ready for action, his cheeks rosy from the cold and his eyes sparkling in anticipation.

I meet Aidan’s eye and blink a thank you to him for being so compassionate with my boy, trying as I do to recall the story of Aidan’s own life that Mabel once told me. He suffered through his childhood without his parents, just like I fear Ben has without a father figure in his life, and for a very fleeting moment I’ve been given a reminder of just how much he is missing out when I see Aidan strap him onto his sledge.

‘Look, I have to admit we’ve never done this before,’ I confess, feeling once more a bit silly for suggesting we come here and then having to watch on like a clueless idiot while Aidan takes over. ‘I’m not sure I’m even brave enough to sit on a sledge never mind ride on one, but I’ll have fun watching.’

Aidan stands up and shakes his head.

‘No, no, come on Roisin,’ he says, showing a spark of enthusiasm in my company at last. ‘I know every lump and bump on these fields, so you’ll just have to trust me, but there’s no fun in watching. Don’t worry. You’ll love it.’

He catches me glancing at his jacket which I’m almost sure I recognize.

‘I got this in the vintage shop in the village,’ Aidan says to me as he goes back to make sure Ben is well strapped in. ‘One of the reasons I turned the idea of doing this down was a lack of suitable clothing, but a drive around the village solved that problem. I couldn’t believe it.’

‘Oh really?’ I say, delighted that he has found Truly Vintage, a little huckster of a store that has fast become the pride of our village.

‘Yes, so I have to take back some of my earlier comments about Ballybray,’ he admits, looking up at me as he speaks. ‘There’s a lot more life than there was when I lived here. There’s a decent coffee corner in the vintage shop too and I see the pub does a good pizza. It’s all a far cry from the tumbleweed village I grew up in.’

He laughs nervously, standing up now and fixing the very smart jacket, which isn’t some tattered hand-me-down, but a chic piece of clothing Camille had picked up on a recent trip to Dublin. I remember admiring it when it came in to the shop.

‘That would be down to my boss, Camille,’ I tell him, delighted to hear he has found my place of work. ‘She sure does know her stuff. It’s a fantastic place.’

‘You work there?’ he says, his eyes widening.

‘Yes, all thanks to Mabel who, for want of a better word, “hounded” Camille, exaggerated how wonderful I was at everything from serving coffee to styling mannequins, and the rest is history. I’ve been there a few years now. I absolutely love it.’

When I say out loud what I do for a living, as modest as it may be, I realize how far I’ve come in the past few years. I really do enjoy my job and I adore spending hours dreaming of how these beautiful once-loved items of clothing took their first step to a new home. Were they outgrown? No longer suitable? Or has the former owner passed on? Moved away? I could spend my days making up imaginary stories about their provenance.

I go to tell him so as enthusiasm bubbles through me.

I am just about to go full fashionista on how Camille says I’ve an eye for spotting a big seller and how I’ve grown our social media following by almost 5,000 likes through my photography and quirky captioning, but then I hear a voice in my head telling me not to. This voice hasn’t made its way there in such a long time, and it makes me stop in my tracks.

‘Shut up, Roisin! No one cares about your fascination with old stuff!’ I hear Jude echo in my mind. ‘Just throw it out! It’s rubbish. I told you, I won’t live in a house with clutter. If you keep hoarding stuff, Roisin, I’m outta here for good and I mean it. You’re not a second-hand teenager on the scrapheap any more. It’s old and it’s used. Let it go.’

So I don’t share my enthusiasm with Aidan at all.

Instead I question myself for even wanting to do so in the first place. What would someone like Aidan Murphy care about my passion for my job in what is essentially an upper-class second-hand clothes store? My world is hardly comparable to his big city life and million-dollar lifestyle. He only bought the jacket out of convenience and because he doesn’t have his own with him and he wouldn’t have had time to go to the nearest designer outlet.

I feel my pulse race and my skin crawl with anxiety. This is exactly where Mabel would have told me to straighten up and be proud of what I do, but I can’t, so I look for Ben. I look for a sense of familiarity.

‘Are you OK there, Ben? Are you strapped in properly?’

I go to my son and fuss unnecessarily by checking the thin black belt is fixed properly. Aidan glances at me as if I think he has done something wrong. He hasn’t, of course, but the imposter syndrome that has haunted me since my experience with Jude has reared its ugly head again and I need to get rid of it fast.

‘Sorry, of course he’s strapped in fine,’ I mutter. ‘Don’t mind me, Aidan. Mabel always told me off for being over protective.’

Aidan looks relieved and gets back into the action.

‘OK, so there’s a mini slope at the far end of the hill, just over here to my left, and I think we should start off with that one as we don’t want to give your mum a heart attack, Ben,’ he says, totally unaware of course of the inner battle I’m fighting in my head that has nothing to do with slopes or the snow. ‘Follow me, Roisin. We’ll take it easy to begin with, I promise.’

I watch as Aidan pulls Ben on the sledge across the field and curse myself for my negative thinking.

‘Live in the moment,’ I hear Mabel tell me as she used to repeatedly. ‘This is a kind, generous man who is making an effort to do something positive in the name of friendship so don’t you dare mess it up by thinking you aren’t good enough.’

I quickly push the image of Jude and the sound of his angry put-downs out of my mind and take a deep breath. It’s a beautiful winter’s day, I’m here with my son and a man who is the closest person I will ever know to Mabel, and we’re out here to have fun in her memory, just like she asked us to.

‘Go faster!’ calls Ben as Aidan pulls him along on the sledge towards the spot he wants to make a start from.

‘No problem, buddy!’ says Aidan, pulling Ben with one hand now and smoothing back his hair with the other. ‘I’d forgotten how it felt to be up here! What a magical place!’

I lift the rope from Aidan’s dad’s sledge and pull it along behind them, following them to the far side of the field where, just as Aidan had told us, there is a much more beginner-friendly slope that won’t take the light out of my eyes.

‘Come on, Mum!’ calls Ben. ‘Keep up!’

I put an inch to my step and try and shift my mindset.

‘You have to learn to trust again, Roisin,’ I hear Mabel tell me. ‘There are people out there who won’t hurt you like Jude did. Good people who can be your friends. Open up. Relax. Learn to open your heart again to friendship that goes beyond the little old lady next door.’

‘I’m trying to, Mabel,’ I whisper internally. ‘I know you’re right. I’m trying.’

I can feel her closer again already, guiding me on as I trundle through the snow with the sound of my son’s laughter in the air. I can sense her spirit is here at the top of this snow-covered hill where we spent so many happy times together. I can feel the serenity of nature as I notice the sparkle on the snow, the chirp of birdsong and the breeze in the air. I allow it to sink in and, as I do, it fills me up inside.

I don’t want to be that weak, insecure and frightened lost soul I was when Mabel found me. I want to be brave like she reminded me I could be, I want to be confident in my beauty, my intelligence, and the abilities she believed I had inside. I want to just be myself.

‘Be careful!’ I shout to Ben when his sledge wobbles at the top of the hill and, in true pre-teen fashion, he rolls his eyes at me in return. If ever anyone took a tally of the most common phrase I say to my ten-year-old son, it would be, ‘Please be careful!’

‘He’s fine! Go Ben! You can do it!’ calls Aidan, sounding himself now very like Mabel in his approach.

I begin to relax a little more, cursing myself that I let those old feelings of fear and apprehension return, even briefly. I hate that I was reluctant to talk more about my job in the charity shop when Aidan showed an obvious interest. I love it there. I put so much creativity and passion into dressing mannequins so they look smart and appealing to the customers, who I can now chat to freely and with confidence.

‘Just be yourself,’ I hear Mabel tell me from wherever she is now.

Aidan and Ben are in a world of their own and I feel like a bit of a party pooper standing on the sidelines as they get ready for their first slide of the day. Aidan looks back at me and beckons me over.

‘I thought you’d be a bit more adventurous than this after your big suggestion to come up here,’ he tells me, flashing a white smile. ‘Come on, Roisin! Join in the fun!’

I shuffle across towards him and he takes the sledge from me into his strong arms, and then wedges it into the ground alongside Ben.

‘Here, have a seat.’

‘You have got to be kidding!’ I tell him. My heart starts to thump at the thought. ‘No way! I can just about manage ice skating on the rink in town but this … what if I don’t stop?’

He throws his head back, puts his hands on my shoulders and guides me to sit on the sledge, then lifts my two feet into place, much to the amusement of Ben who is in absolute stitches laughing beside me.

‘I think the hedge at the bottom is a good bumper,’ Aidan tells me. ‘Come on! This is a baby course. Just wait until we’re doing the big one.’

I smell his cologne again and can’t help but notice the faint dark hairs that sit below his wristwatch, his tanned complexion, and the muscular outline of the stretch pants he wears under his new second-hand coat.

He hunkers down beside me and puts his hands on my shoulders again, facing me this time.

‘Trust me,’ he says, when I’m all ready to go. ‘If I were to put you or Ben in any danger I’m pretty sure my aunt Mabel would haunt me for ever.’

My stomach flips and at that, he goes around the back, but I freeze with fear.

‘No, seriously I don’t think I can do this!’ I squeal, gripping the handles on the sledge. ‘I’m sorry I’m just a big mouth with big ideas I can’t follow through on. I need to get off.’

Again I feel his hands on my shoulders, but this time he pushes me forward and squeezes in behind me, his arms coming around by my waist where he takes my hands off the edges and takes hold of the rope. He puts his feet into two little home-made rests at the front and I try to ignore how physically close I am to him right now.

‘You’re not getting away with it that easily,’ he tells me. I feel his breath in my ear and hear Ben’s squeals of delight beside us. The heat of his body behind me makes me close my eyes and breathe out, as a flurry of emotions runs through me. I haven’t been so close to a man in years, and I try to ignore how good it feels.

‘Mum, it’s a baby slope!’ Ben shouts across at me, bringing me back to reality. ‘I’ll race you both! One, two, three, go!’

And at that, Aidan tips the sledge and we’re off before I can protest any more.

‘Woah!’ I shout as we dip over the brow of the hill and slide down towards the hedge at what I’d feared might be lightning speed but realistically is only slightly faster than I’d ride a bike. The wind lifts the stray hairs that flow around my face beneath my woolly hat and the breeze almost takes my breath away but the rush I get, even from such a modest first attempt, is enough to get my heart racing and to my surprise, I get a real buzz as we slide down the hill next to Ben with our arms in the air.

We come to a hasty stop at the bottom when the sledges chunk into a mound of snow just before the hedge, and Ben squeals and giggles beside me, then laughs hysterically when Aidan and I manage to tip over and land on our sides, leaving me totally covered in icy whiteness. I laugh until my sides are sore.

‘Are you still alive?’ Aidan asks, doing his best to clamber out of our snowy mess.

‘That was so amazing!’ says Ben. ‘I want to do it again! Get up, Mum! Again!’

Aidan helps me up, taking my hand in his and using his other hand to hoist me up gently by my elbow. His eyes dance as he steadies me, and then he helps me brush off the excess snow from the back of my jacket.

‘I want to do it again!’ I say to him. ‘That was so good!’

‘Deal!’ he says, and the three of us race to the top of the hill again, the sound of our laughter the only sound that breaks the silence of the woods behind us.

It is tranquil, it’s exciting, and it’s as if we are lost in our own world far up high from the village and far away from the pain we’ve known for the past few days.

And so we slide down the hill again and again, and before we know it, the sun that has lit up our day of fun on the slopes of Ballybray goes down, and a midnight-blue sky with a bright moon takes over.

‘That was the best fun ever,’ Ben says on repeat as we pack up, soaked through, freezing cold, but warm inside with joy. ‘Mum, I can’t believe you actually went down the steepest part of the hill on your own and you didn’t even tip over!’

The dark rings under Ben’s eyes that I’d obsessed over for days seem to have disappeared and his once pale face is now almost a tomato shade, but the best thing is how his eyes sparkle as he speaks. I don’t think I’ve ever seen my son light up the way he has today. His hearty laugh echoed in the stillness of the winter sky and the more he laughed, the more Aidan and I did too.

Mabel used to remark how my whole face changed when Ben laughed, and I think that’s why she made sure he always had plenty to smile about when we were in her company. It’s not that she felt sorry for us in any way, though I sometimes accused her of doing so when I felt she was being too kind, but more that she loved to see other people happy. Seeing and hearing my son laughing makes me happy. I think it always will.

As we pack up before we venture on and make our way back down to the village, slightly breathless and exhausted, Aidan is smiling, Ben is smiling, and I am smiling from ear to ear. I think Mabel knew exactly what she was up to when she left us the instruction to do something that makes us feel alive. The more I got to know her throughout the years, the more I realized that nothing she ever did was accidental. Every word, every conversation, every move she made had a purpose, and that purpose was always to spread kindness and joy, or to raise a smile, usually in someone who needed it most.

She knew we would need this to get us out of the stagnant misery that had engulfed us since her passing.

It’s been the most wonderful, beautiful crisp winter’s day, and we are remembering her just as she would have wanted us to. I’m cold to the bone, yet I feel like so good, as if something has awakened within me and as the moon shines down on us now, I begin to thaw ever so slightly. It’s hard to pinpoint this feeling I now have inside. Is it a new sense of hope, perhaps? Or could it be of a new beginning or at least a step towards a life here without her?

‘I have to give it to you, that was fun,’ Aidan says to me. He has a healthy colour in his cheeks too.

‘It was amazing, thank you,’ I say, and I mean it truly. ‘I’m glad you changed your mind and joined us.’

‘I am too,’ he says.

I’m so glad that Aidan had the courage to push ahead with Mabel’s wish for us to do this together, but I also can’t help but wonder where his wife is while he is here, and how she might feel if she knew he was having so much fun with me and my son here today.

As Ben shivers towards me now, I remind myself that Aidan Murphy’s marital status is absolutely none of my business and curse myself for my usual overthinking. I pull Ben closer to warm him up with a towel and, as I dry his hair as quickly as I can, I feel Aidan watching us.

‘You know, seeing you do that just reminds me of me and my mum when I was little,’ Aidan tells me, wrapping his own towel now around his strong shoulders. He dries the back of his neck and hair in horizontal strokes as he speaks. ‘I remember her doing that to warm me up around this very same spot when I was about Ben’s age.’

‘That’s nice,’ I say, momentarily sensing his sadness and still scrubbing Ben’s head to make sure it’s as dry as I can make it. ‘You must have amazing memories of your childhood here, even if Ballybray is the land where time stands still and we have DVD players and the like.’

He smirks at my nudge towards his earlier, less complimentary comments about the place he once lived.

‘It’s certainly a much more happening place now,’ he admits. ‘You really love it here, don’t you?’

‘It’s been good for us,’ I say, catching his eye again. If only he knew just how much coming here changed my life for the better.

‘There’s no doubt about it,’ he tells me. ‘I spent the happiest days of my life here too. There’s no better place to raise a child than near the coast in a close-knit rural village. I have many happy memories from here, lots of which were triggered by coming up here today.’

Ben’s brown eyes dart towards Aidan in a spark of admiration, and my stomach gives a leap when I see a look I recognize from many years ago. He looks at Aidan with such awe that it takes my breath away and even scares me a little inside. He looks at him as if he is the hero he’s been waiting for. I need to get him home.

‘OK, Ben, it’s suppertime,’ I say, wanting now to escape back to the safety of my life behind the green door, away from any possibility of my son becoming too close too soon to Mabel’s nephew.

Call me paranoid and over protective, but I’ve seen that look in Ben’s eyes before, and I’ve also seen a very different look when his father let him down. I can’t risk ever seeing that again, plus Aidan Murphy owes us nothing. He could disappear in a heartbeat, and in a few days he probably will.

‘But what about Aidan?’ asks Ben. ‘Are you going back to Mabel’s house again, Aidan? We could—’

‘I’m sure Aidan is very busy,’ I say, avoiding Aidan’s eyes this time. ‘But we’ve all had such great fun today, haven’t we? I can just feel Mabel smiling down on us already, especially at your bravery, Ben, when you tackled the biggest slope.’

Aidan pipes up, contradicting my suggestion that he may be busy.

‘We could always finish off the day with some pizza? My treat?’ he says, patting his tummy. ‘I mean, that’s if it’s OK with you, Roisin?’

‘Yes! Please Mum, please!’ says Ben.

‘Sorry,’ says Aidan, when he senses my discomfort.

I breathe out and contemplate if I even have a choice right now. I’m totally outnumbered, but in the pit of my stomach, my gut instinct if you like, I am very, very afraid. I’m afraid of this feeling of euphoria, of the companionship and the laughter, of how Aidan put me at ease every time I had a moment of self-doubt up there on the hill. It awakened something inside me that has been dormant for so long, and it scares me. But then I look at Ben and—

‘OK, how can I say no to a boy who is chatting and smiling again after days of silence?’ I say, convincing myself I’m doing this for my son’s benefit only.

But I can’t get too close to this man in any way, and neither can Ben. We are all raw, we are all vulnerable, and when the dust settles on whatever business Aidan is attending to here in Ballybray, he is going to leave again. As much as Mabel has pledged us all to be family, I know my son’s inner pain will want more and more of the beautiful moments we shared today.

Aidan Murphy has a life and a wife in America, I repeat to myself. He is not ours, and he never will be.

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