Page 56 of Secrets in the Snow
‘We can’t “break up” when we were never really together!’ I say to him, unable to look at his face on my phone screen. ‘You’re so tied in with Rachel still, and I’m not doing this any more, no matter what I feel for you. I can’t!’
I want him so badly and I love him so deeply, but it’s killing me and it’s making me into a monster. I want to run away from it all, and that’s not good. But most of all I want to run to him. I’ve no idea what to do.
I’ve never wanted to be with someone so badly, yet the challenges it brings and the weaknesses it brings out in me are so ugly and I hate it.
He sounds as shocked as I am, but the vulnerable state I’ve driven myself into is a one-way street and I’ve just hit a roadblock. I bite my lip. I can barely breathe.
‘Roisin, do you love me?’ he asks, his own breath stilted and uneven.
My heart stops when I hear the ‘L’ word mentioned. Do I love him? My God I do. I love him so much and it’s killing me to do so.
‘Because I love you,’ he says, his eyes glistening now. ‘I love you and I can’t believe you’re doing this! Maybe if wesee each other again soon we can work this all out? Trying to sort it out by phone is a nightmare, so if you just give me a chance to get there …’
I sniffle and wipe my puffy red eyes. I want to see him, of course I do. I want him to hold me so close and take all this pain away, but the thought of saying goodbye again and sliding down into this hole of despair every time is breaking my heart over and over and over again.
‘You know, you’re not that person any more,’ he tells me, a bit more determined now when he realizes I can’t find the words to answer him in the way he’d want me to. ‘You think that everyone is out to hurt you or destroy you, but not everyone is like that, Roisin. Not everyone is Jude or your mother. There are plenty of people like Mabel or Janet and Michael in this world, if you are just brave enough to let them in. I love you, but you’ve made it crystal clear lately that you aren’t prepared to fight for this, even though I’m the one trying to come up with solution after solution. I hope you have the sense to change your mind, but in the meantime you need to decide what the hell it is you want in life, because at the minute it doesn’t feel as if it’s me.’
He hangs up and I sit there in silence, wondering what I have just done. I claw the carpet on my living-room floor. I crawl on my hands and knees and beg for the strength to get me out of this self-destructive fog.
I am numb. My heartbeat slows down as I pull myself up off the floor. I’ve no idea what to do next or who toturn to. Everything is silent and numb. It’s too late to call Camille, and I can’t think of anyone else who cares.
I don’t have anyone else. I’ve blocked out the world to protect my own heart, and yet here I am, feeling it smash into pieces once again. Why can’t I believe Aidan when he says that we can make this work? Why can’t I just enjoy what we have instead of always wanting more? Why am I so afraid that just like Jude, he will hurt me or leave me a broken mess?
I stumble into the kitchen, where I reach to the top shelf in the cupboard and I take down the bottle of whisky that’s only here on reserve for cold and flu season. My fingers slip on the glass I take from the shelf below, then I pour myself a hefty measure and I sink it in one.
I hate whisky, but right now I hate myself even more.
The next morning when I wake up feeling like a foggy mess and I’ve got a missed call and a text message from a number I don’t recognize, I’m not in the mood to read it never mind reply. But I hold my phone out and squint to read the message.
‘Hi Roisin, you may remember I spoke with you briefly in Sullivan’s Bar in Breena a few months ago and you left your number. I’ll try calling you again, but I thought I’d text to say that I’m ready to talk now about the Murphy brothers. It’s time for the truth to come out at long last. I look forward to hearing from you in your own time. Thanks, Bernie Sullivan.’
Maybe it’s my rising anger, maybe it’s the idea of cold revenge, or maybe it’s a hungover decision I’ll later regret, but I type in an instant reply and then toss the phone onto the empty pillow beside me, before willing myself back to some extra minutes of sleep before Ben wakes up.
‘Wrong number,’ I tell the mysterious Bernie from Sullivan’s in my vengeful response. ‘I hope you find who you’re looking for. Sorry, but it’s definitely not me.’
AUTUMN
30.
For the next few weeks as balmy September days slip by into autumn and the days become shorter, I slide deeper and deeper into a darkness that engulfs every part of my existence. I ignore Aidan’s calls, I turn my head when I hear Camille’s voice of concern, I isolate myself from anyone or anything that doesn’t involve existing in a world of feeding Ben, making sure his homework is done now that he’s back to school, and waiting until he is asleep so I can self-medicate in order for me to sleep too.
It’s only when Ben walks in one night wanting a drink of water that I see in his face a mirror image of myself at his age and it scares me enough to put the bottle down and take a whole new approach to how I’m going to get on with a life without Aidan.
I have a glass in my hand, I’m mid pour when the innocence of his voice rings in my ear and launches me back to reality and the fear that I could very easily turn into my mother.
‘I can’t wait to tell Aidan that I jumped Mr Magoo today in the paddock!’ he says as he pours water from the tap.The flush of water hitting his glass and then splashing on the sink rings in my ears and a wave of shame washes over me. ‘He bet me when we were in New York that I wouldn’t be able to jump by the next time I saw him, and Aidan said he’d give me a ten-pound note all for myself if I can. When is he coming to see us, Mum? And why is theFor Salesign back up next door? I thought he wanted to keep Mabel’s house for ever so he’d be close to us?’
I push the glass away and stare at the wall. What am I becoming? Why am I destroying everything I’ve worked so hard for since I came here? Why am I unrecognizable, if not to my own son just yet, but to myself when I look in the mirror? I can’t eat, I’m losing weight by the day, and I need a dose of alcohol to cradle me to sleep at night. I sniff, I close my eyes tightly and then I turn to face Ben with a cheery smile.
‘It’s time you were asleep, mister,’ I say, walking him back upstairs where I tuck him into bed, praying he doesn’t smell the whisky on my breath and trying to ignore that I too had noticed theFor Salesign in the garden. I lean into his little neck, nuzzling into his warm sweetness and inhaling his familiarity and scent of home.
‘Are you OK, Mum?’ he asks me, his voice croaky with tiredness. ‘You seem really sad. It scares me when you’re sad.’
I wish I could pull myself together. I know I have to pull myself together. I told Aidan I wanted everything for Ben that I didn’t have myself in childhood and yet here Iam, showing my darling son the opposite, causing him to worry about me when it should always, always be the other way around.
‘Don’t you worry about a thing, my precious,’ I say, kissing his forehead and tucking him in tightly. ‘Mummy is fine and loves you very much, so you don’t have to worry about me, ever.’
He looks up at me, with longing and raw vulnerability in his eyes.
