Page 55 of Secrets in the Snow
‘Macy’s,’ I say, trying to add some sparkle to my voice, which is undeniably monotone.
‘And Mabel’s work place, it was cool,’ says Ben as he grips the window, drinking in his last taste of New York. ‘Yes, that’s my top three. What are yours, Mum? I bet you loved the shopping best.’
I manage to fake a smile when I turn around to look at Ben, who doesn’t even give me time to answer. I just know he is going to milk this for weeks when he gets back to school.
‘And I can’t wait to give Gino his present,’ he continues. ‘He isn’t going to believe that I saw the real Statue of Liberty, but this little one will have to do him.’
‘I’m sure he’ll love it,’ I tell my son, blinking back tears as I look out through the passenger window of Aidan’s black Jaguar. ‘You’re a good friend, Ben.’
I feel Aidan’s pleading stare on the back of my neck, but I just can’t look his way. I bite my fist and watch as the New York skyline flies by and says goodbye to us, reminding me of how alien I feel here right now.
I can’t wait to get home.
When we get to the airport, the reality of saying goodbye to Aidan again, despite my inner heartache, hits me like a ton of bricks, but it’s a different type of sadness from our last goodbye.
This is final, this is heart-stopping, and this is as though my whole future has been ripped out from beneath my feet without warning or without giving me time to catch my breath.
I can see in Aidan’s eyes that this is killing him too, but I can’t bear to be physically near him right now. He reaches out for a hug from Ben and I watch them embrace. I wonder if he can really explain his way out of this, and even if he does, if I can ever forget how seeing that photograph and reading that article made me feel today.
‘I’m so sorry, Roisin,’ he whispers into my ear when it’s time for our final farewell, but I can’t listen to him now. ‘Iknow we can’t talk this through right now, but I want only you, and Icanexplain everything, I promise.’
I look up at him with glistening eyes.
‘Save your promises for “your rock”, Aidan. You know, the wife who got you through such hard times,’ I say through a false grin and gritted teeth. ‘God, I’ve been so gullible. Now I know why you weren’t keen on us coming here, and I feel so ridiculously fooled and so stupid. Goodbye, Aidan. I’m so bloody disappointed. You’ve broken my heart all over again. Goodbye.’
‘I’m sorry!’ he says, looking right into my eyes with pleading sorrow. ‘I’m so sorry, Roisin, but believe me I can and I will explain if and when you want to listen.’
I feel like I’ve been once again led into a fog, just like I was with Jude, where I was so trusting and vulnerable, so willing to believe that I was loved, when all the time I was being hoodwinked again. The searing sting of embarrassment burns a hole in my stomach and I hear Jude’s laughter in my head at how easily I was tricked again. I see him shaking his head, smirking at me, telling me how easily lured I am by the promise of the love and security that I’ve been so desperate for all my life.
‘Never,’ I say, smiling through my tears, then I take Ben’s hand. ‘No man will ever hurt me like this again, and I know it’s clichéd, but I did think you were different. I’ve been such a fool.’
We both walk away, without stopping or turning aroundas we go through the security gates, and when we are finally out of Aidan’s sight I want to scream and cry at how much my love for him is tearing me apart. But I can’t do that now. I have to keep wearing this mask for my son’s sake and that’s the only thing that stops me from giving in and breaking down right here, right now in this busy airport terminal.
It’s like a tsunami of grief; it’s as if my heart has cracked open a little more every time I’m treated this way by someone, and I don’t know how much more of it I can handle in my life.
My heart can’t take any more bruising. It just can’t do this any more.
29.
‘Yes, you can,’ Camille instructs me as we sort out a new line of clothing she’s ordered in from London a few days later. ‘Youcando this. You’re not giving up on this, no way. I won’t let you, and neither will Aidan. What does he say? Have you at least heard his side of the story? There’s bound to be a story behind the story if you get what I’m saying. Things work differently in New York, and business is business.’
I slip a rose-gold beaded dress onto a hanger, but it keeps sliding off, no matter how I try to manoeuvre it, which doesn’t help with my darkening mood. The sun is splitting the trees outside and my anxiety levels aren’t up to much, meaning I can’t focus on the job at hand at all, never mind trying to patch up my broken love life. I can’t concentrate on anything. When I’m at home I’m tetchy and irritable, and when I’m at work my mind is all over the place.
‘I’m not taking any of his calls to hear about any of his business,’ I explain to Camille, who looks on with such pity. ‘Camille, my heart broke, and I swear I felt like he was incomplete denial of what I was looking at right in front of me. It was so hurtful. I don’t get it. How could he live such a lie to me? We talked every day and we messaged right up until my bedtime every night for the whole summer since he left, but I guess the time difference allowed him to play his very clever balancing act between the two of us. I’m so gutted. I really thought he was different, you know. I really did!’
I drop the gold dress on the floor again, and this time I lean my head back and count to ten to stop myself from totally breaking down. Since I got back from America I have a very short fuse, and I’ve even begun talking to myself when I’m at home, trying to work my way out of destroying the best thing that has ever happened to me.
‘It won’t work out so there’s no point wasting your precious time for any longer,’says one voice in my ear, while the other tells me to hang tight. ‘Just because everything else turned to mud in your life, Roisin, doesn’t mean it has to do so for ever. Grab this by the horns and fight for the answers. What would Mabel say?’
‘I really wish we could get over this,’ Aidan tells me one Friday night when I give in and take his call. He even suggests he books a flight to come to see me for a long weekend to try to mend things. ‘What do you want me to do, Roisin? I can call Rachel and ask her to tell you everything if it makes you feel better? Is that what you want? Just tell me what will make this all go away and I’ll do it!’
I pace the floor of the kitchen, my veins bubbling with frustration at how I don’t know how to get rid of all these insecurities and the self-doubt that is running through my head and keeping me awake at night. I picture Rachel in my head, comparing her tall, willowy figure to my ordinary, average Joe height even when in heels; her tanned and toned legs, and her solid gold trimmings. She looks as if she hasn’t had a day of hardship in her whole life. She looks as if she was born with one of those gold bracelets on her arm. How could Aidan love someone like her and then claim to love someone the very opposite, like me?
‘That’s like saying how could you marry someone like Jude and then be with someone like me?’ he retorts, scoring a point that makes absolute sense.
I hate the person I’m becoming, but I know it all stems from the long distance between us and how it feels like for ever since we said goodbye in New York. The days are dragging on and on, my mood is dropping deeper and deeper, and I’m becoming a person I don’t know any more, or like for that matter. I even went into Mabel’s house and scoured the place for the newspaper clippings of Aidan and his life before me, to really test my own limits, and when I read about him and his ‘former beauty queen wife’ it almost sent me over the edge. It’s as if I’ve pressed the self-destruct button and I’ve lost the instructions on how to switch it off again.
‘Do you really want us to break up over this?’ Aidan asks,when I’ve pushed him as far as I can, asking questions about Rachel that bear no relevance to where we are now and how far we’ve come. ‘Just yes or no, Roisin, because I’m doing everything I can here to convince you that this is all going to be worth it one day. It won’t be like this for ever. I don’t intend it to be, and I’m sure you don’t either.’
